


The Beginning Of The End, or, The Destiny Engine

by LeftHandMan



Series: Guardians [1]
Category: Guardians of the Elements
Genre: Gen, Guardians - Freeform, M/M, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Original Universe, i want to mcfreaking die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 21:03:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 28
Words: 43,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11814141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeftHandMan/pseuds/LeftHandMan
Summary: Ajay Clarkeson is an adopted child, raised in one of the most bland and unimportant places on Earth. At the behest of his teacher, Mr Solomon, he and a group of people he has some vague acquaintance with will band together to save the universe. This is all totally original and not derivitave at all I swear.





	1. 2016 Is Bad

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, and also, here's the prologue. I didn't put it down as its own chapter because then chapter 1 would be marked down as chapter 2 and shit would get fucky.
> 
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Te6LOlshX3YkwvTuzsFzUj_BEM4vYA3WvAef0y6EEXE/edit?usp=sharing
> 
> Anyways, thanks for reading. Or not. Either's a good choice.

The world suddenly snapped into focus around me as I woke up. My name was Ajay Clarkeson. If facial structure, skin colour and my parents’ insistence on making me study my heritage, I was a somewhat pale Indian kid, adopted by (the whitest couple ever to marry) Maria and John Clarkeson, which meant, to me, that they were endlessly tiresome and trying. Today, my mom woke me up and 6:43 in the morning, fed me a meager breakfast of a buttered bagel, got me to walk the dog, pack my own backpack and lunch, and I had to have it done by 7:00. Her work set her up for a meeting at 7:20, and she complained to me if I was a minute off, her schedule would, essentially, be fucked. We got out at 7:12.

“I’ll be in the car!” she shouted at me, as if it was some kind of punishment for me. Whatever, like I gave a dick. I slipped a coat on, and hustled out to the car. The passenger’s door of her gold minivan slammed behind me, and she sighed exasperatedly. She put the car in drive, and sped out. I gripped my seat as she turned a little too quickly onto the road.

A minute or two into the drive, she said, “Buddy, you can’t be making me late like this.” Why the hell was she always like this? “I need to have gotten my things set up by now.” Why don’t you get me a damn car, then? I could drive myself there, I knew how. Hell, a _bike_ would’ve sufficed. “You can’t keep doing this, buddy.” I slipped my earbuds in, and turned on some music. She dropped me off on the curb of the school’s bus loop, and zipped away.

I trudged the water-embossed concrete path to the school that held my happiness just out of reach. George H. Clark High School was, generally speaking, mediocre. The computers were either twelve or three years out of date, and they all ran off Windows XP. It was Nova-Scotia-grey, and was shaped like a blocky “J”. I pulled the glass door open, and was met with a slew of students rushing to class like startled cattle. I was buffeted around a bit, found my bearings, and directed myself to my locker.

Ian, a friend/acquaintance of mine, was fiddling with his screwy lock a few lockers down. He was a head or so taller than I was, and his brown hair was always unkempt, and his glasses always askew. He gave me a wave, and a melancholic smile. I reciprocated with finger guns. He grinned at me, then returned to concentratedly frowning at his lock and brushing his hair out of his eyes. I turned the lock into its three positions; 7, 9, 12, and unlocked it. My pre-cal book fell out and hit me on the head. “Fuck,” I muttered. I threw it back in, and a gym shoe fell out to avenge its brethren. “Dicks,” I reiterated. I shoved it back in, and followed it up with my backpack, and pulled out the gym shoe and its pair.

I went to change in the bathroom, because changing in front of others made me uncomfortable, especially when I knew them. I wandered into the gym, where everyone was doing laps. I joined them, and someone I knew, Alex, started to jog alongside me.

“Hey,” I said.

“Yo,” she answered. Alex was two or so heads taller than me, and usually dressed in men’s clothes, which today meant a muscle shirt and grey sweatpants. I asked her about it once, and her explanation confused the hell out of me. It made sense now, but it still gave me confusing messages about my sexuality. Her skin was tanned, and her dark brown hair which was tied into a ponytail had smatterings of blonde. “Hey, did you hear about the updates on the teacher strike?” she asked. I shook my head; I didn’t care much for political affairs.

She shrugged and kept talking. “Mr Solomon sent out a notice last night, band’s going to be cancelled, so are intramurals and shit,”

“Alright then,” I said, “less work for me.”

“Seriously? That’s what you’re thinking about,” she said, “what about the teachers?”

I shrugged, “Eh. Doesn’t really matter much to me, too bad for them, I guess.”

She sighed at me, “Oh ye of little perspective. You’ve gotta think of the bigger picture, my guy.”

“Alright,” I said, “what are the dimensions of the Mona Lisa?” She cracked up, and had to stop running she was laughing so hard. I smiled a little myself, but it was a terrible joke. She soon reappeared by my side.

“Hey, uh,” she began, she looked a bit nervous now, “Do you know if Ian is doing anything tonight?”

“Not sure,” I answered, “Why?”

She dodged my eyes a little, and focused on running, “Just curious.” Ian was the only friend the two of us really had in common. “ _Miss Peregrine’s_ is coming out tonight, I thought he might be interested in it.”

“I’ll bring it up to him,” I answered. I turned a corner, and I felt a stabbing pain in my leg. “Ach, hold on.” I paused, and limped over to a bench. I massaged my leg, but then I felt another pain in my forehead. It wasn’t the same pain, more of a… burning. I felt a bit faint for a moment, but it passed. My leg felt better now, and I went back to jogging.

A girl named Lena ran past me; I caught the shadow of the permanent scowl on her face. She was known for her “violent outbursts”, and, for some fucking reason, nobody pinned the blame on her (see also: bullshit). Her blonde hair was shaved on one side, and she wore a pink shirt that read “I have the pussy, I make the rules”. Why this was allowed at school, I don’t know.

I ran for another thirty seconds or so, but before the minute was up, I felt a fist collide with my spine. I fell over, and when I turned to see where the fist came from. Lena. Fury glowed on her pale skin, and she let out a half-roar-half-scream, bent over, and started punching my chest.

I struck back, and struck her left… uh… her left… the chest. She dropped me, and staggered back a bit, but quickly aimed a side-kick to my stomach. I felt like I was going to throw up. The teacher tried to separate us, but she headbutted him in the dick. I tried to stand up, but she came back to finish me off. After a few dozen more punches, a series of well-placed kicks, and me coughing up blood, more teachers came in to amend the situation. One of them helped me up, and delivered me to the principal’s office. I knew what was coming.

 

It took Mr Solomon fifteen minutes to tell Lena what amounted to a drawn out “No, that’s bad”. I was bandaged up, and generally pissed when Mr Solomon called me in. It was going to be another speech about how you should never use violence to fight violence, wasn’t it? I limped to his office, where he was sitting in his swiveling chair, with Lena fuming with pugilism opposite him. She told me “You’re dead meat, fuckhead.”

“Wow, dead meat,” I said cockily, “how 2000s of you.”

“Calm down, the both of you,” Mr Solomon inserted. His voice was deep, rich and silky, and always made me calmer. It almost felt like my wounds were healing themselves up. His grey hair and beard and square-rimmed glasses gave him the look of a librarian, or some kind of scientist. His eyes were greyish blue, and I could almost see my reflection in them. “Ajay, I think you know why you are here.”

I sighed, “Because you should never fight violence with violence, peace and cooperation is always the way…”

“No,” he said. I straightened myself, surprised. He had never refuted that claim before. “What you did was perfectly justified, and I appreciate you can recognize that combat is sometimes a necessary evil.” I cheered internally. Finally, fighting back was the good thing to do! “What miss Ashley here did, on the other hand, was not. While I know you think you cannot control these outbursts, Lena, I assure you, your will is stronger than your fists, and, judging from the state you left mister Clarkeson in, that’s saying something. Now, I want you to apologize to him.”

“Fuck you, dipshit,” she said, not making it clear to which of us she was talking to.

“Try again.” Mr Solomon replied.

Through gritted teeth, Lena managed a “sorry” that sounded like the audible summation of _The Phantom Menace_ ’s CGI.

“Close enough,” Mr Solomon said resignedly, “Mister Clarkeson, I have called your parents-” I groaned. Part two of the fuckening was coming. “-and your mother has agreed to come pick you up.”

I coughed a little. “Oh, my favourite.”

He chuckled some, “Get some rest. Judging from the state you’re in, I would say you need it.”

“Ugh, fine,” I croaked, my head lolled to the side to look at Lena, “See ya, pinky.” It was a mistake. What happened next was a blur, mostly consisting of blows to the head and nuts. I woke up in my bed, hooked up to some bootleg medical machines. Well, that couldn’t’ve been worse. There was an IV in my arm, and some other medical crap peppered here and there.

“Well, that was a shitshow,” I tried to say, but it came out more like a strained “WhhhhhhEEEEEwwwwShhhh”. I looked around my room a bit. Nothing new, aside from my temporary cyborging. I tried to sit up, but the pain forced me back down. I turned my head to my bedstand, and saw a bottle of sleeping pills. I wheezed out a “fuck it”, grabbed them, and downed a couple. Took them about half an hour to go to work, and, looking back, I can’t tell if it was worth it or not.


	2. Nothing Makes Sense

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ajay dreams a strange dream, one which he has seen before. It doesn't help when he sets his house on fire.

My dreams were dark ones. After some psychedelic bullshit, it seemed like my brain had settled on a plotline; It was the same dream as last night, but with more detail. The shadow was now distinctly human in shape, but his face was shrouded in black armour, like the rest of his body, which was crafted to fit to his skin like spandex. His yellow eyes peeked out from holes in the mask. The room was glowing white, but he left a dark trail in his wake as he entered.

The man in white was wearing armour of the same substance, but with a reflective white cloak, that shimmered like a rainbow, and I saw they sat on a white marble throne. Their eyes were covered with white panes like a superhero’s mask.

“Shadowed one,” said the man in white, “for what reason do you wish to speak with me? I am sure it is well worth my time.” I couldn’t see his face, but I could tell from his tone that he was smiling. It’s always the worst when you know how it’s going to end, isn’t it?

“Alpha,” said the shadowed man, “I can assure you it is.” He drew the hilt of a weapon from an invisible pocket, and it ignited in a black fury into the shape of a scythe. He swiped at Alpha, and their eyes faded.

“Child…” Alpha managed, “What compelled you to do this to me?”

“For Omega,” said the shadow. “For I am their darkness, I am their fury. I am the Dark Omega, and my time has come.” He slashed open Alpha’s skull, (I wish I could’ve looked away for this part,) and pulled out the white stone. He drew the stone to his forehead, and it fused to his armour. The place where a mouth would’ve been split open into metal fangs, behind which was a black void. Like before, the stone turned a blinding black colour.

A door swung open behind him, and a man in red armour, carrying a sword of fire rushed in. He had his face exposed, and he looked… Like me?

“NOOO!!!” He screamed, but the shadow sliced him through the stomach. He fell to the floor, and the fire blade retracted into a handle. The shadow chuckled, and summoned the stone from the fire man’s head. It seemed to obey his command now that he was in possession of Alpha’s stone. He put it to his forehead, and it slid into place next to Alpha’s stone. He was surrounded by flames, and emerged from them larger than before.

Time flashed forward, and I was now in a ruined house with the shadow, who had grown much larger in the meantime, and now had a crown of stones around his head, along with the minion, who wore grey armour and had a striking resemblance to Mr Solomon. He held up a canister, and opened it to reveal a small child in strange orange garb.

“Here’s the little devil,” the minion said, “want to give her a name? I’ve just been calling her ‘box midget.’ Not entirely sure that’s fitting for the daughter of the immortal ruler of the universe.”

“Xaneeta,” the shadow said, “it seems fitting, given the histories of these children.”

“Alright,” the minion said, “have it your way,” and added under his breath “If you want to be fucking lame.” The shadow shot him a look, and the minion said “I’m kidding! I’m kidding!” and again added “Partially.”

The shadow shrieked to the sky, and I woke with a start, and discovered my house was on fire. I shot up from my bed, and discovered that the fire didn’t hurt me. That’s when I noticed I could move again, and I wasn’t bound by my injuries. But then I remembered “FUCK! FUCK! FIRE! SHIT!” I ran as fast as I could out of there, but the fire clung to my body like tape. All my stuff was going up in flames, and there was nothing I could do about it.

What happened next shocked me. The fire started to leave from my house, but it looked like it was coming for me! My house was going to be alright, but I was in a state of “Shit, shit shitshitshit!” Then I remembered “Oh, right.” The fire didn’t burn me. I tried to see if it was a dream by falling over and shocking myself awake, but all I got was mud in my hair. I called 911, thankfully my magic fire bullshit protected my phone, and they came over to assess the situation. Half an hour later, my parents showed up.

“What happened here?” My mom asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered, “there was a fire and now there’s not,”

“What about the dog?” she asked. Shit. I rushed back into the house, just to make sure my dog was fine. I found her in the living room upstairs, a little crispy and frightened, but otherwise alright.

“Hey pup,” I said, stroking her fur. I carried her outside, and I saw Mr Solomon talking with my mom. I walked up to them, and asked “Hey, what’s going on here?”

Mr Solomon turned to me and said “I’m afraid that will have to wait, I’m not at liberty to discuss this with you right now.”

An ambulance arrived, and I was quickly sent to a hospital, even though I insisted everything was fine. The hospital was nice enough. I was given a room to myself (there were other beds, but nobody was in any of them), and I basically just had to chill for a couple hours. I was half asleep again, when some blonde asshole stepped in.

“Oh hey, dude,” he said, “what brings you here?” I hated that I could recognize him. Nick was this stoner jackass, and liked to hang around other jackasses like himself. His dumb hair was tied into the most lackluster of buns, and he took a cup of lime-green Jello and plopped it down his gullet.

“Set my house on fire,” I said.

I prayed he wouldn’t respond, but he replied with a resounding “Bummer. I ODed,”

“That’s nice,” I said, giving a total of negative three fucks. Then something clicked in my head. “Wait, you ODed?”

“Yup,” he said, “I did a bit too much last night, know what I’m sayin’?” He chuckled stupidly.

“But,” I began, “if you overdosed, then how the hell are you standing?”

He stared at me in a daze, and went “I dunno, magic?” This was the shit I got myself into wasn’t it? Magically absorbing fire, and getting confined to a hospital bed next to this half-brained dickhead.

I saw my iPod absolutely light up with notifications out of the corner of my eye, all from tumblr. I recognized the username, “@hellpain-official” as belonging to Ian. “Hold on,” I said to Nick, “this is more important.” He made half-chuckling, half-snorting sound, and walked out, nicking my jello cup as he left.

The messages from Ian were of mixed surprise and confusion, all them had caps lock applied to every letter. They started out with a “DUDE HOLY FUCK”, followed by three other messages, one word each: “IM”, “FUCKING”, “FIT!!!!!!”, which were succeeded by the letter “A” typed a couple hundred times. I sent him a “what”, and he replied with a “LOOK AT THIS SHIT”, and a picture of himself shirtless.

For the entire time I had known him, Ian had never fully realized the concept of physical fitness, and was always a couple dozen pounds away from being healthy. His shirt was pulled up to reveal an actual, literal eight-pack. “what the shit” I typed back. His reply came in faster than I could register. “THIS SHIT JUST HAPPENED” “OVERNIGHT” “WHAT IS THIS” “THANK YOU SPAGHETTI MONSTR ILLUMANITI” “U HAVE SAVED ME”. He followed up by sending a post of a guinea pig eating lettuce, and then a “not relevant but looke at his lil face”, and “precious bean child”.

Some bullshit was definitely going down. Ian had an eight-pack, Nick survived an overdose, and I managed to get out of a burning building with fire clinging to my body. I heard footsteps, and Mr Solomon walked into view. “Ajay, how are you this fine morning?” His voice was too calm, and it pissed me off, but I couldn’t stay mad at that face. “All things considered, you’re not in terrible shape.”

I laughed a bit, and the incident of him talking to my mom this morning slipped back into focus in my head. “I’m fine, but… what were you talking to my mom about earlier?”

He pulled up a chair, and sat down. “Actually, that’s what I came to talk to you about. Ajay, we are both fully aware that, forgive me if this is not a comfortable topic, you are not, strictly speaking, your mother’s child.”

“Yeah, I’m adopted,” I said, “what’re you bringing it up for?”

“I am bringing it up,” Mr Solomon answered, “because I am not sure you know how true that is. Truly, you are more far removed from Mrs Clarkeson than you would think.”

I shifted a little. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, my child, that you are not of this world.”


	3. A Lot To Process

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ian finds out a disturbing tidbit of information about himself, and is given a cool space sword, and hears aliens talking on the radio. Shit's getting wild.

“I’m sorry,” I said, still reeling, “what?” My heart raced, and I was breathing faster than I probably should’ve been.

“I said that you are not from Earth.” Mr Solomon answered. He said some other things, but I was still processing the “Hey, you’re from space” bit. He tapped me on the leg, and said “Still there?”

“More- more or le-less,” I stuttered, “So, so you’re, you’re sure that I’m from… from space? How, h-how do you, how do you know? Like, for sure?” Coherent thoughts are hard.

“I know this,” he began, “because I delivered you to your parents. I am much like you- far from home.”

My breathing was slowing down a bit. “So, so you’re an alien, too?”

He chuckled, “Well, not quite. The Core, where we came from, came first. We created the Earths.”

“Hold on,” I said, sticking my hand up, “did- did you say Earths? Like, Earths, plural?”

“Oh, yes, you heard me correctly,” he said, “There’s certainly more a lot like this one. I and my brothers have been protectors of them for millions of years. But, I am afraid, it will not last much longer.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Seventeen years ago, the Core was destroyed, by a Guardian of Shadow. I do not know much about him, but his minions know him as ‘Dark Omega’. This Dark Omega, a very pretentious name if you ask me, has set his mind on destroying the Earths.” 

My mind slipped back into “WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK” territory, but it was so unbelievable that I quickly fell back out of it. “Wait, let’s go back a moment, Guardians? Shadow?”

“Sorry, I keep forgetting you don’t know the fundamentals,” he said, almost condescendingly, “The Guardians are, of course, guardians, of the elements and the universe, especially the Core itself. There are approximately twenty-nine elements, give or take a few. In retrospect, I would say that this morning’s events make a bit more sense now.” 

“No, not really,” I said, “it’s still more or less crazy space magic bullshit.”

“Well then, you remember how you absorbed the fire before?” he asked.

“Yeah, hard not to,” I answered “what about it?”

“The fire was a result of your elemental Stone of Fire activating,” he replied, “as well was your health returning to you.”

“My what now?” I asked.

“Oh my, these questions are getting exhausting,” Mr Solomon complained, “your elemental Stone is a crystal that has existed since the beginning of the universe, and it is embedded in your brain.” Startled, I grasped at my forehead, suddenly scared the rock embedded in my skull would fuck something up, but Mr Solomon pulled my hand away, “No, it’s not going to kill you. It’s usually in energy form, and doesn’t affect your brain functions. You’ll be fine, I’ve lived with mine for giga-annum. Aaand you don’t know what that word means. At any rate, you should have this,” he handed me the weapon hilt I saw in my dream. “It’s called a Guardstaff, it shapes itself into weapons or tools created from your elemental energy and matter.”

I held the weapon in my hand, and suddenly it shot to life in a blaze of red fire. “Oh, shit!” I immediately dropped it, but Mr Solomon picked it back up again.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.” He gave it to me again, and it ignited again. It formed a sword, with a double-edged blade of flames.

“I… I know this sword,” I remarked.

“The gladius?” Mr Solomon asked, “I’m sure you’ve come across at least an image of it befo-”

“No, no,” I interrupted, “I’ve-I’ve seen this specific sword before. Like, with the flames and everything.”

He looked at me quizzically. “From where?”

“In a dream,” I said, turning the blade in my hand, “like, last night. Someone was holding it, he looked a lot like me. And, and he, he...” I didn’t finish that thought.

Mr Solomon looked at me with a grave expression. “Well,” he said, standing up, “I need to tell this to a few more of your classmates. Today’s going to be quite long. Unfortunately, that Nick boy who was here a few minutes ago, is one of them.”

“Good luck,” I said, giving him a wave.

“I’ll take what I can get,” he said, grinning. Just before he left my sight, he added, “Ajay, I want you to know that you are strong. With or without your powers, you are still unique. Remember that.” and walked away to leave me with my thoughts. 

A few minutes later, my mom and a doctor came in and discharged me. Since I wasn’t continuing to spontaneously combust at random hours, I was free to go. “I still don’t understand,” said the doctor, rubbing the back of her head, “he lives through a fire, and there’s not a scratch on him.”

“Maybe it’s subcutaneous,” I added as a joke. They both stared at me in confusion, and, if I could’ve, so would I. Until two minutes ago, subcutaneous wasn’t part of my vocabulary. Maybe Mr Solomon was rubbing off on me. I cleared my throat nervously, and said “Well, maybe we should, uh, get going.” 

  
  
  


The car ride home was a bit more strange than I expected. My mom and I sat in awkward silence until she asked me “Did Mr Solomon tell you about the…?”

“The stone?” I half-asked, half-answered, “The space stuff? Yeah. That.” The conversation ended there. She seemed on the verge of tears. I turned on the radio to CBC; it was a good bet they would be reporting enough depressing things for her to take mind off the depressing things. The first thing we heard reaffirmed… whatever the hell happened today. 

“... is now playing host to a series of meteorites. They are identically sized and egg-shaped, about six feet in length and two point five feet in width. They appear to be made of stone, but, when studied, scientists say they are producing heavy amounts of radiowaves. These radiowaves, in fact, produce the sound of human speech.” My mom’s eyes widened, and I can say mine did too. “We have a recording of one such ‘conversation’ between two meteorites.” the woman on the radio continued.

The recording played. It was filled with static, but there were definitely words there. I heard a woman’s voice say “Why do we have to wait so long? We know where they are. We can strike now! They’ll never see us coming, we can wipe them out in one blow!” 

A man’s voice spoke now. “Shut up! These cocoons will break when we need they’re going to break. No sooner, no later!” I recognized the voice from my dream; it belonged to Dark Omega’s minion. He was more dickish than I thought. “Now, shut up! You’re breaking my concentration. I need to focus on this sudoku.”

“Chaos,” she growled. Clearly this was his name, or at least his codename.

“Xaneeta,” he said, mocking her tone. Funny, that was the same name as- No. Could it be? The kid-in-a-can from my dream, all grown up. Must’ve been longer ago than I thought. 

The radio announcer resumed. “These meteorites have been deemed non-dangerous, and are to be presented at schools around the province today and tomorrow. Some officials have qualms with this, but the school board and provincial government have agreed to go through with it.” I froze in my seat. My mom and I exchanged glances. The aliens were coming to school, and I was going to be one of them.


	4. Assembly Required

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ajay attends an assembly at his school, and, of course, shit goes down.

Alarm bells went off inside my head. My mom dropped me off at school, and I tripped over my feet almost immediately. She tried to make sure I didn’t go inside, but I pulled out the guardstaff, and assured her I would be fine. Mr Solomon would be there to protect me, at least. When I got inside, a giant stone egg, a foot taller than I was, stood on a pedestal in the foyer. A gold plaque on the base read “Chebucto Talking Meteorite”. My first instinct was to smash it then and there, but Ian distracted me.

“DUDE DUDE DUDE DUDE DUDE” he shouted, holding up a guardstaff, “I need to show you this, let’s go!” He pulled me outside and walked me around back, all with the biggest smile I had ever seen out of him plastered on his face. “Check this shit out, dude!” He pulled the hilt out, and it ignited into a glowing purple scimitar.

“Whoa,” I said, “So you’re a Guardian too?”

He looked taken aback, but then suddenly excited. “Dude, you’re a Guardian? How sweet is this shit?! Did Mr Solomon give you yours too? Ooh, what’s your element? Light? Gravity? Sound?”

I pulled out my guardstaff, and the flaming gladius formed from it. “Fire,” I answered, “You?”

“Reality, my dude,” he said giddily, “Check this shit out, too!” He closed his eyes, and purple scales started to form on his body, neatly molding to his sweater and skin. It avoided his eyes, and coated his glasses instead. “Are you seeing this?”

I looked at him, amazed. “Dude, how do you do that?”

“I have no fucking clue my guy,” he said. The mask of his armour moved with his mouth. “It just kinda happens, I guess. I just go ‘whoop’ and there it is! Ha ha!” He sounded triumphant.

“I need to figure that out,” I said. A question popped into my mind, and I asked “Did you have a dream, too?”

He looked at me confusedly. “I had a dream, but maybe it would be best if I didn’t share.”

“I had a dream that a shadow man killed the king of the universe,” I said, “let’s assume yours isn’t as weird.”

“More or less,” he said, and nervously rubbed the back of his head. “Mine started out with, uh, you don’t want to hear it…”

“What was it?” I tapped my foot impatiently.

“We were…” he avoided my gaze, “in bed…?” Oh. Well, that explained a few things. “I told you that you wouldn’t want to hear it. This is on you, bucko.”

“Huh,” I said, also avoiding his gaze, “Well, my dream started out unfocused and just, like, with weird dream shit, too. I just thought yours would be-”

“Plot relevant?” he finished for me. His meta jokes always confused the hell out of me, but I got that one, somehow. He chuckled nervously.

The PA system blared with a “Would all grade eleven students please come to the cafetorium for an assembly.”

“This is about that egg thing, isn’t it?” I asked to nobody.

“Egg thing?” he asked to me, “Like the one in the foyer? Yeah, do you know what that’s about anyway?”

“It’s from space,” I answered, “and it talks.”

He looked shocked. “Now that I think about it, I was getting weird vibes from it. Maybe that’s my element going to work?”

“That’s a good bet,” I said, “maybe we should, you know, keep an eye on it?”

  
  
  


We all gathered in the cafetorium, where the school’s stage, usually used for plays, was set up. A faux-velvet curtain was put up, and I assumed that’s where they had moved the meteorite, which I noticed wasn’t there when we came in; my first reaction was that it hatched, but, since nobody was visibly dead, and the pedestal was gone too, that wasn’t the case.

The vice principal, Mrs Alium, was standing at the podium, and spoke into the microphone. “Students,” she began, “we are happy to announce that the Nova Scotia provincial government and the science council, have decided to provide us with an amazing discovery. Just this morning…” I tuned that bit out, I had already heard it from the radio. Alex came in late, and decided to sit down next to me.

“Hey, what’s going on?” she asked. I pointed to the stage, and she was quickly enthralled by Mrs Alium’s unrelentingly dull speech.

“... and here it is. Mister Walker, miss Docter, if you please.” Two students stepped on stage, and began to pull away the curtain, and the egg, and two identical others, were revealed. “Miss Docter”, who I only ever knew as Julienne, was a shorter asian girl, with black hair tied back in a bun, and wore denim leggings and a white dress shirt.

“These three eggs, along with twenty-nine others,” she spoke, “were found crashed in the Chebucto area just last night. They were found to produce radiowaves, and the sound they produce is astounding.” She had the presentation skill of a sack of potatoes. 

“Mister Walker”, who I knew as Gordon, was wearing very similar attire. He held up a radio, and began to tune it. It quickly became evident that these weren’t the ones that CBC recorded. The radio screamed at us, with sounds vaguely like a frog being dissected alive pouring from the speakers. Groaning, screaming horror erupted from the radio, which was quickly turned off. Suddenly, this was becoming very real very quickly.

Gordon started to drag on about the implications of these meteorites, when I noticed they had begun to crack. Each one of them, splitting from the top down. Very quickly, I stood up. Just as fast, Alex pulled me back down. “Don’t,” she said, and I fast understood her intentions, “we can’t attack them yet. Just wait.” I mouthed a “how did you-?”, and she answered with “Ian told me. The boy can’t keep a secret to save his life.” This sounded horribly ominous, but she pulled out a guardstaff from her khakis, which I noticed were yesterday’s. “I’m with you, Ajay. Don’t be stupid.”

“Easier said than done,” I joked. She laughed, but her expression turned stern. I heard the whole cafetorium gasp, and notice the “meteorites” were cracked down to the middle. Shadowy steam was hissing out of them, and they were moving a little on their pedestals.

“Everyone get out!” Gordon, Julienne, Alex and I all said at once. The students and teachers present started running, but the four of us stayed there. Oh, and so did Ian.

The eggs were nearly cracked all the way down, and Alex and Ian had drawn their weapons and armour. Alex wore brown armour that covered her whole body, but vaguely outlined her sweatpants, and molded to her ponytail. Her guardstaff shaped itself into a glowing brown-and-orange, sci-fi looking pistol. She cocked it, and took aim. I looked to the stage, and saw Julienne and Gordon become enwrapped in Guardian armour; Julienne in icy white and Gordon in electric blue and yellow. They pulled out guardstaff hilts, and they both formed into poleaxes. Looks like they were in on the bullshit, though, clearly, they had a bit more synchronicity.

“When they open, start swinging,” said Julienne, “and don’t stop.” Gordon looked at her concernedly, and tightened his grip on his weapon.

I ignited my blade, and started to creep up to the stage. I saw Ian doing the same, purple scimitar in hand and himself fully armoured up. 

“Hey,” he whispered. 

“Hey,” I replied.

The eggs billowed sinister smoke, and the center one exploded open, and the eggs to its sides followed suit. A figure emerged, clad in black guardian armour, except its mouth was cracked, and looked like a set of hideous metal teeth. It roar-screamed, and I was suddenly reminded of Dark Omega’s scream. I stopped dead in my tracks. Two identical monsters emerged from their pods, and pounced on Gordon and Julienne. Alex opened fire, taking time to fire at all three with stoney bullets in rapid succession. 

The middle creature screeched at her, and pounced. I swung at it with my sword, expecting it to cut through the creature. What happened instead was it was batted back a foot, but was quick to get back up. It fixed its glassy-eyed gaze upon me, and I noticed how much like a  _ Jurassic Park _ dinosaur it acted. It hissed, and rushed me. 

Alex fired a shot at its head, narrowly missing me. The creature’s mask now had a hole in the temple, revealing graying hair, and pale flesh that bled dark blood like a wound from on a corpse. “Great, zombies from space,” I said, “nothin’ better.”

I heard Ian yell some unintelligible battle cry, and did his best to bash in the monster’s head. It was enough to piss it off, at least. It shifted its focus to him, and he said “Oh, shit!” and ran away.

I saw Julienne pinned down by her space-zombie, and Gordon struggling with his. Alex was dividing her fire between the two of them, and Ian was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. This isn’t going to work, I thought to myself. We needed a plan. Furious, I took charge. “Alex, focus your fire on Ian’s creature,” I commanded, “it’s armour seems the weakest to your shots. Ian, get over here!”

Ian ran towards me, and Alex opened fire. It took three shots to its exposed temple, and keeled over. “Ian, you help Julienne, I’ll help Gordon. Alex, three shots at each to distract them, aim for the mouths.” Ian and I climbed on stage, and we started swinging. I singed its back with my gladius, and it took notice. It turned its head to scream at me, and got a mouthful of rocks. I plunged my blade down its throat, and it collapsed in a burning heap. I gave her a thumbs up, and she reciprocated. I could tell she was grinning under her mask.

I turned to look at Ian and Julienne, who were beating at their creature to no avail. “Gordon,” I said, “why don’t you give this one a stab?”

“I’d be honoured,” he said, and sliced the last creature with the blade of his poleaxe. It didn’t do anything. “Uh, okay,” I said starting to panic, “maybe, uh maybe-?”

“Tick tock, shithead.” I turned my head, and saw Lena, standing in the doorway, armoured in bright pink Guardian armour, with a glowing pink AK-47 guardstaff in hand. I was never before, and I doubted I ever would be, happier to see her. She aimed her machine gun, and shot a rapid volley of pink bullets from it, filling the creature with glittery hatred. It tilted over, and gurgled its last.

“You, you saved me,” Julienne said, “thank y-” She wasn’t even finished with her sentence by the time Lena shot her through the chest.


	5. Thinking It Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena drives a point home, and the group takes notice.

“NO!” Ian screamed, and propped up Julienne, bloody and choking. “Someone get help!” As if on cue, Mr Solomon stepped in, followed by Nick with a first-aid kit. He climbed up on stage, and demanded wrappings from Nick. Nick opened the case, and handed Mr Solomon a roll of gauze bandages.

“That shouldn’t have penetrated,” Solomon complained, “Lena, what the hell were you thinking?!”

“Revenge.” Lena said flatly.

“Revenge for what?” he scolded.

“She took up the bathroom when I needed it once,” she answered, and fired another shot, this time at me.

I was fast enough to dodge, but it still freaked me out. “What was that for?!”

“I don’t like you,” she answered, and fired again, with the same results.

“Lena, put that thing away!” Solomon demanded, “If I’m right, it’ll solve two problems.” Lena’s guardstaff and armour evaporated, and Julienne breathed a sigh of relief. Then, a cough of relief. “The bullet’s gone,” Mr Solomon narrated. “All I need now is-” he wrapped the bandage around her, tightened it, and said “She needs to get to the hospital. I’ve done what I can do here, but I have not the tools to heal her properly. Someone call the hospital, quickly!” 

Ian pulled off his armour back into… wherever, and took out his phone to call 911. “State my emergency? Oh, geez,” he muttered into the phone, “uh, somebody was shot? Where am I? Can’t you government people just track our calls? No?” He continued on like this for a few moments, and returned to us with “They’re coming. Not sure how soon, though.”

Mr Solomon patted him on the back and gave him a “Thank you.” He turned to me, saying “I am so sorry you had to put yourselves through that. I didn’t think they would open until next period. I was across the street when I felt them cracking. I am so, so, sorry.” He wrapped his arms around me in a hug of remorse, then pulled back. “I wish I had trained you earlier now, the Halfguard are stronger than when I last met them. It was horribly irresponsible of me to leave you alone with them. I just hope I-”

He was interrupted by ambulance sirens. Then there were firetrucks, then police cars. The whole of Nova Scotia’s public servants descended upon the school, swarming around the alien corpses, and Julienne collapsed on the stage. We got out of sight before they could spot a squad of brightly-coloured idiots with magic swords. As we left, Mr Solomon’s “I am so, so, sorry,” got stuck in my head.

  
  
  


It was the second time I visited the hospital in that day, more than I would usually visit it any given year. We all sat in the waiting room, and discussed… whatever the fuck that was.

“So,” I said, twiddling my thumbs, “what elements… are, uh, you guys? Ian, I know you’re Reality, but-”

“I’m Rock,” Alex volunteered, “Mr Solomon told me just this morning. Funny, I usually lean more towards rap.” Ian laughed too hard at that, so much so that he coughed a bit.

“I’m, uh,” said Nick, gears clearly failing to spin in his head, “uh, fuck, what was it?”

“Acid,” Mr Solomon corrected. He was pacing furiously. “It’s why, despite your frequent use of abhorrent illicit substances, you have never suffered consequences!” He was shouting now. He sat down, and held his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, I, I thought-”

“It doesn’t matter,” I interrupted, “what matters is that nobody’s hur- Oh. Right, somebody  _ is _ hurt,  _ Lena _ .”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Lena complained, “that bitch had it coming.”

“Wasn’t your fault?” I scolded, “You shot her in the fucking chest! It was your pink, frilly-ass bullet that nearly fucking killed her!” I was standing up now. I unconsciously had taken my guardstaff out, and was gripping in a rage-infused fist. She stood up to confront me, but Alex held her back.

“Don’t you dare,” Alex said, forcing Lena back down. “Mr Solomon, what’s Lena’s element?”

“Emotion,” he answered, “I would wager it has something to do with why we’re all on edge. That and she nearly KILLED one of her classmates!” He was shouting now, too, but collected himself. He took a deep breath. “Lena, I believe it would be best if you stepped outside.” Lena struggled against Alex, who was helping her out of the room, and I noticed Gordon in the corner of my eye, crying quietly.

“You okay bud?” I asked him.

“Oh, I’m fine,” Ian answered in Gordon’s place, “just a little, y’know, anxiety! Otherwise, there’s depression, self-destructive urges, a-”

“Not you, dipshit,” I corrected. “Gordon, are you doing alright?”

He didn’t speak. Instead, he stared at me with tears in his eyes. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without her,” he mouthed. Tiny gasps escaped his mouth, and he sobbed a little louder. I put my hand on his shoulder.

“She’ll be fine,” I said. He mouthed “You don’t know that.” and pointed to the hallway. Down that hall, Julienne was in surgery.

“I think I do,” Ian said, “I don’t know why or how I know this, but there’s a 17.3896 percent chance of her dying, 26.2268 percent chance she’ll survive but be incapacitated, and a 56.3836 percent chance she’ll be perfectly unharmed. The numbers are longer than that, but they’re just decimals.” We all stared at him in amazement. 

“What the hell was that?” I asked.

“It’s, uh, it’s a thing I can do,” Ian answered, “it started this morning. When I was presented with a choice between peanut butter or cheese on my sandwich, I knew which one I was more likely to pick. Seems superfluous at that point, but meh. It was peanut butter, by the way.”

“What the fuck?” Nick said, speaking for all of us.

Ian pointed at us all accusingly. “You had crazy shit happen, too!” He pointed at me. “This asshole set his house on fire!”

“You leave me out of this,” I said.

“You asked first!” he accused.

“Can you all just shut up?!” said Alex, who had entered the room without our notice, and carrying Lena under her arm. “I just had to deal with this one, don’t make me do it to you guys, too.”

Nick chuckled half-brainedly, “What’re you gonna do?”

Alex dropped Lena, and grabbed Nick by the neck. “Nothin’ you’d like.” He nodded frantically, his eyes bulging. She released him, and he sucked in some air.

A doctor came down the hall. “Are you the family of Julienne Docter?”

Mr Solomon stood up. “I am her legal guardian,” he said, only half-lying, “what seems to be the matter?”

“Miss Julienne,” the doctor resumed, “I’m afraid the surgery hasn’t gone as well as we’d’ve liked.”

Gordon burst into tears. “What happened?” Solomon asked the doctor.

“Whatever penetrated her body went deep,” he said, “we’re afraid that, it… It punctured her spine.” We all gasped. 26.2268 percent, I thought to myself. “She’s not expected to be able to walk again. We’re sorry, we’ve done all we could.”

In a fit of rage, Gordon pulled out his guardstaff, and it ignited into an electric poleaxe. Tears streamed from his eyes. The doctor froze in fear.

“Gordon, put it away.” Solomon commanded, “He did nothing wrong. In fact, I’d wager he did everything right.” The axe retracted, and Gordon sat back down.

The doctor was shaking in his boots. “She-she’ll be out in a f-few minutes. I’ll let you kn-know when you can speak to h-her.”

  
  
  


We gathered around Julienne’s bed. Gordon was kneeling next to her bed, holding her hand, weeping softly. I looked at Mr Solomon. “What do we do now?”

He looked at me, concerned. “We do what we have to. More importantly, we make sure this doesn’t happen again.” He turned to Lena. “I hope you know this is your failing.”

“Fuck off, spaceman,” she snapped.

He glared at her, then looked at Julienne. “You might have been the one who fired the bullet, but the Halfguard were still enough to nearly take out all of you.”

Julienne stirred. “What, what happened? I-I can’t feel my… my legs…” Gordon sobbed. “What’s… no, no, this can’t be happening. I, I can’t be-” She shed a tear.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Solomon said.

We all bowed our heads, except for Lena, who had her head shoved down by Alex. “I wish it had been a slimmer margin,” Ian said, “It shouldn’t have happened. Everything pointed towards-” 

Alex shushed him. “Let’s leave them alone for a minute.” We left the room.

“You’re right,” I said to Solomon, “we can’t let this faze us.”

“What do we do now?” Ian asked.

“There’s something I didn’t tell you yet,” Mr Solomon said. “I told you all about the multiple Earths, correct?” We nodded. “Well, there’s something we used to make it happen. They’re called Destiny Engines. We created them to guide the passage of time, and the evolution of the planets and their histories. Dark Omega and his minions need those machines. If they get a hold of all of them, they can alter the ultimate destiny of the universe, bend time to their will, or, if they choose, destroy the universe.

“So far, I’ve managed to destroy them all, except for the one that belongs to this Earth. I kept it around because we’ll need to re-create them, but it may well be our undoing.”

“So what’re we supposed to do?” I asked him.

“We fight. We fend off Dark Omega’s servants, then we take the battle to him.”


	6. The One With The Purple Penis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Equipped with new armour and weapons (Bionicle references huehuehue), the Guardians try to figure out what the hell they can do with their shit.

Mr Solomon managed to call a day off of school. It wasn’t hard, given the space-murder from yesterday. We had all lined up in the gym, except for Lena, who was screaming in the changing room. We stood side-by-side, as Mr Solomon did his teacher thing.

“Your most essential tool as a Guardian is your guardstaff,” he said as he paced the length of the gym, “as of yet, you have only used one mode- your Sign. Your Sign is the base weapon that you summon as a default. Each Guardian’s Sign is unique.” He held out a Guardstaff, and it lengthened into a yellow spear. “This is mine. Now, if I concentrate, and picture a different tool-” The spear shifted into a crossbow. “There! Now, hold out your staves.”

We all held our guardstaff hilts out. “There’s more than one way to take that,” Ian jokingly interpreted. Alex chuckled.

“Guys, a little more focus, please?” I said. Ian kept giggling. “Eh, fuck it.” I concentrated, and the flaming gladius I had come to know ignited from the hilt. Now, how about something different? I scrunched up my eyes, and focused on an axe. I opened my eyes, and my gladius had been replaced with a double-bladed axe of flames.”Nice,” I said to myself.

I saw Ian blink hard, and his scimitar emerged. He blinked again, and it turned into… a penis.

“Oh,” he commented. Looks like guardstaffs could interpret Freudian slips. “Uh, lemme try again.” He was blushing hard. He blinked harder, and the penis got longer. “This feels like symbolism.” He repeated this until he held a bright purple dick that was well over a foot long. “This isn't working.”

“Perhaps try thinking of something else,” Solomon chided. “A hammer, perhaps?”

Ian, trying his best, turned the magnum dong into a giant purple hammer. He tipped over to the soundtrack of “Fuck, fuck, FUCK! Shit.”

“That's another thing,” Solomon resumed, “you can control the mass of your weapons. If you find yourself improperly balanced in combat, you can adjust your weapon to strike harder or simply feel better in your hand.”

Ian took note, and stood back up, this time swinging the hammer around with ease. “There we go,” he said triumphantly.

“Now, I want the rest of you to try,” Solomon encouraged, “give it a shot!”

Nick, Alex, and Gordon held out their guardstaffs, and each of them formed into some fantastical weapon. Nick now held a samurai’s katana, Alex turned a pickaxe over in her hands, and Gordon now possessed an electric whip. We all exchanged satisfied looks. These were most definitely cool.

“Now,” Solomon said, turning his crossbow back into a spear, “attack me!”

“Uh, why?” Ian questioned.

“Because,” Solomon began, “you will need to know how to fight, and who better to teach you than a teacher?”

“Point made,” Ian shrugged. He came at Solomon, spinning his hammer around like an idiot. Like it was a dance, Solomon bent backwards, and easily avoided the ridiculous maneuver. He swept around, and knocked Ian off his feet with the spear.

“That,” Ian said, out of breath, “was not as easy as I expected.”

“Again,” Solomon insisted. This time, I attacked. I swung my axe, and he parried. “Concentrate on my movements. It is a limitation of humanoid bodies that we must telegraph our attacks before we can make them. My muscles will move before I do.”

“You’re wearing a suit!” I complained. I struck again, with the same result. He smirked. He swung his spear at my legs, and I jumped. He stabbed at me, but I bent backwards like he had done. It was my turn to smirk.

“You’re doing well,” he said, “but not well enough.” His spear turned into a whip, and it laced itself around my legs, and I toppled over.

“My turn,” said Alex, spinning her pick.

“Don’t damage anything, please,” Solomon warned, “there’s going to be enough destruction eventually.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she said, “might be because I’ll be doing it, but whatever.” The pick plunged into the floorboards, and Solomon was sent flying. He sent out his whip, but it didn’t hook on anything. He cracked into the wall, and Alex was quick to catch on. Her pick shifted back to a blaster, and she took aim. “Any last words?”

“Oh, I’ve got a book,” was Solomon’s reply. He shot from the wall, and whipped the gun from her hands. His whip changed to a rapier, and it found itself pressed against Alex’s neck.

“Slick,” she retorted, “but can you keep it up?” She bent backwards, and grabbed her gun, which she changed to a different gun, and an orange net shot out. Mr Solomon was once again attached to the wall.

Ian cheered for her, and the rest of us followed suit. “All right, Alex!” he encouraged. She flashed him a confident smile.

Solomon pried off the net. “Well done, Alex!” He clapped. “Now, I want you all to take a partner, and fight until you can’t beat each other.”

Nick stared at his sword. “Dude, could I like, commit sepuku with this shit?” We all stared at him.

“Nick, that was neither intelligent or relevant,” I said, “and yet you somehow managed to use a big word that confused us all. Well fucking done.”

“Thanks, man,” he replied. We paired up. The groups were me and Alex, and Gordon and Nick.

Ian noticed that he was left without a partner. “Uh, Mr Solomon,” he asked, “I don’t have a partner.”

“What about Lena?” Solomon suggested.

Ian looked shocked and afraid. “Uh, no thanks. I’ll, uh, just be in the corner.” He retreated to a bench in the farthest corner of the gym.

Solomon looked at the rest of us. “Well, let’s get to work!”

Alex and I moved away from the wreckage, and into the corner opposite Ian. We squared off, and our tools sprouted from their hilts.

“So, how’s things been?” I asked her, coming at her with my blade.

She shot the blade, and it fell out of my hand. “It’s been less than a day since we last talked! Any other topics?”

I retrieved my guardstaff. “Did you and Ian see Miss Peregrines?”

“Yeah, it was good,” she replied, turning her gun into a claymore sword, “He had some problems with it, though.”

“Like what?” I said, starting to circle.

“He said the time travel didn’t make sense,” she said, rushing me, “that and some-” our blades clashed, “plotholes. He liked-” we parried again, “Sam L Jackson, though.”

“Mmm,” I agreed, pulling back, “I can see why. That man could be-” clash, “taking a shit in my bathtub and I’d still be captivated.”

She laughed. I was quick enough to put my sword to her throat. I’d picked out her weakness. “Not bad,” she said.

“Thanks,” I replied, “you’re not bad yourself.” I pulled the sword back. “How about we both go ranged this time?”

The claymore returned to being a gun. She cocked an eyebrow. My weapon shifted into a rifle, and I did the same. Not the rifle thing, the eyebrow thing. That would be weird. How could I turn into a rifle? Nevermind.

Mr Solomon came rushing at us. “No ranged combat! Your goal is to get each other in a position where you could defeat them. Even if you were using your armour, bullets could still pierce it. We don’t want to hurt each other, remember?”

I rolled my eyes at him, and turned my sword into a lance. I stuck it out at Alex, and said “There, you’re killable.” I looked at Mr Solomon, “Happy?”

Alex shot the lance out of my hand. “Not yet.” Solomon said. He turned to look at Gordon and Nick. “How are you two- ah. I see.” As I expected, Gordon had Nick solidly pinned to the ground, and had apparently stolen his partner’s guardstaff. “You’re supposed to fight each other, not just win! If you can delay your enemy, you can make them bargain with you.”

“What good’s bargaining going to do us?” I asked, “They’re not going to reason with us.”

He looked at me knowingly. “You’d be surprised. Keeping up a conversation can be a better tool than you would think. Even if you can’t interrogate them, casual conversation is a good way to get them to slip some information.” He looked contemplative for a moment. “By Alpha’s grace, that was poorly worded. Well, I would think you understand my meaning. Now, let’s all-” Suddenly, the lights went out. A booming voice echoed from nowhere.

“Oh, come out, my dear little Guardian children, it’s time to pla-ay!”

“Well,” I said, “looks like training’s been cancelled.”


	7. She-Demon in the Science Lab

I recognized the voice. It belonged to Chaos, Dark Omega’s minion. I ignited my sword so I could see.

“What’s going on?” I asked Mr Solomon.

“Chaos,” he said, almost whispering.

“Yeah, I got that,” I said, “but-”

“You all need to hide,” he insisted, “Chaos is dangerous, much too dangerous for you to handle.”

“No, no he’s not,” I said, confident of my abilities, “we can take him.”

Solomon gripped my shoulders. “Chaos is one of the oldest Guardians alive; he was one of the first of us to be created. Think of any creature of myth, and I can assure he is its father.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said, “there’s no such thing as-”

“Now is not the time for debate,” he interrupted, “I’m sure he’s brought more Halfguard with him. If we split up, we can keep ourselves safe.” He stood back, and was shrouded in darkness. “Teams of two, Ian and Ajay, Alex and Nick. Gordon and I will protect Lena.”

I nodded, and called for Ian. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  
  
  


We hid in one of the biology labs. It was the closest, and it was big enough that we would have room to strafe an attacker. All was silent and dark.

Ian decided to strike up a conversation. “So, this is exciting.”

I shushed him. He kept talking.

“I mean, first I find out I’m from space, then I find out so were you, and-”

“Shut up!” I urged him. He didn’t pay attention.

“- Then there were the space zombies, and the threat of an impending apocalypse dependant on our skills and ability to function in the real world even though we haven’t even finished high school, now this! Oh, boy,” I could hear his hands dragging down his face. “We’re so fucked we’re so fucked ohhhhh fuck…”

“That’s nice,” I snapped, “but shut the fuck up! Something’s going to hear us!”

“Sorry!” He apologized.

Chaos’ voice rang through the halls again. “So, let’s start things off with a simple puzzle.”

“Oh, good,” Ian mused.

“Now,” Chaos resumed, “let’s suppose that someone, say, Sally, has no arms or legs. Now-” Something banged on the door. “Who do you think that is?”

I drew my sword, and Ian shakily pulled out his scimitar.

“Any guesses? No? No. Well, I’ll give you a hint-” The door shattered into pieces, and a hideous Halfguard beast screamed into the dark room. “- It sure as hell ain’t Sally!”

By the light of my sword, the black creature’s head snapped to face me. It hissed and lunged. It landed on my chest, and I struggled to force it off.

I swung around my gladius. “Come on!” I taunted, “Is that all you got?”

“No.” answered Chaos. The creature suddenly became enveloped in electric sparks, and it crackled in the darkness.

“WE’RE DEAD” Ian screamed.

“Give me a hand, at least,” I complained to him. He stood up, and shakily waved his sword at it.

He gulped hard. “G-give me your worst, fucker.” It lunged, and struck him down. He was convulsing horribly with its electricity flowing through him. 

I sliced down with my sword, and cut its arm off. A scab formed over the wound, and the arm twitched uncontrollably. It stood up, and faced me. It hissed, and I sliced again; there went the other arm.

“Feeling disarmed, are ya?” I punned, “Come on, at least you have a leg to stand on!” Like an actor just off cue, electric arms formed from the wounds. “Okay, that’s fucking weird.”

It screeched at me, when a purple blade emerged from its chest. Ian had stuck it through the back, and it looked almost surprised. Ian laughed nervously, and the Halfguard collapsed to the floor. 

“Oh fuck,” he said, panicking, “I fucking killed it, oh dear SWEET Satan in hell I fucking killed it. Oh, shit.”

“Dude, it’s just a monster,” I said, “why’re you freakin’ out?”

“Because I fucking KILLED it and it’s dead,” he said, collapsing into a freaked-out flesh lump.

“It’s just a monster,” I reiterated, “what’s wrong with killing it?”

“Because I don’t like killing things!” He shouted at me, “It makes me feel horrible, okay?”

“Dude, just chill out,” I insisted. He gripped me by the shoulders.

“I CAN’T! THAT’S NOT A THING I CAN DO!”

I shoved him back. “Dude, can you not?”

“NO! I CAN’T!”

“Look, it’s dead, now, so let’s just-” I heard crackling. Not lightning crackling, but fire crackling. I turned around, and the Halfguard was standing there, with flames for arms. “Fuck.”

Its burning hands latched onto my arms, and my clothes were set ablaze. It didn’t burn me, but it felt weird. I struggled against the flames, but, somehow, the fire was hard.

“Ian!” I shouted, “Wanna try again?!”

He tentatively held up his sword, but one arm of fire leapt out at him and smacked it away. My arm was freed. I aimed a punch right in its jaw, and the arms vanished for a moment. I took my chance, reached for my sword and sliced it in half. To finish the job, I kept slicing.

Ian breathed heavily. “Is… Is it dead for real now?”

“More or less.” I answered, “It’s steak tips, now, anyways.”

I prodded at the flaming scraps of the Halfguard. Something shone in the light of my sword. A scrap of crystal, where the head had been before I cut it up. I reached down, and picked it up. I turned it in my hand, and it looked like a shattered version of the stone Dark Omega plucked from Alpha’s corpse. Cinematic parallels, I thought to myself.

“The hell’s that?” Ian asked.

“I think it’s a Stone,” I answered, “this must’ve been a Guardian at one point.”

“Okay, that makes things worse,” he said, “I’m going to throw up now.” He did.

I looked around. I noticed that, instead of actually cutting the power, someone had just turned off the lights. I switched them on, and looked at the sliced up corpse. 

The armour was evaporating, and I could see remnants of a humanoid person. She looked like she would have been nice in person, except for, you know, slicey slice corpse mutilation. Blonde hair tumbled from what would’ve been a head, and her eyes were all black. It got weird when I noticed a bit of sliced-up boob. I wondered who she was, and turned to see and hear Ian, heaving heavily into a corner.

“Thanks for turning on the lights,” he said between vomits.

“No problem,” I said, a little grossed out. “Come on, we should go find the others.”

“Why?” He questioned me, wiping vomit from his mouth. “We took out this one, why couldn’t they do the- Oh.”

“Oh?” I asked, “Oh what?”

He stared at me a little sheepishly and a little cheekily. “Do you know how to turn on your armour?”

“Not yet, wh-” I figured it out. The fire had burned my clothes off. “Aw, fuck.” He giggled, and I shot him a dirty look. Wait, no, not that kind of dirty look. I glared at him furiously. “Can you fucking not?” I said, cupping my balls. He burst into raucous laughter.

“Enough of this gay bullshit,” I said. Without really meaning it, I activated my armour. I could feel the plates forming, gripping to my body. I saw it coat my fingers, and work its way up my body. Soon enough, I felt the plates mesh with the muscles and skin on my face. I checked my mouth; it opened, and I could breath, but it was sealed off.

“Woah,” I commented, “this is fucking weird.” Ian was still staring longingly. “Can you fucking not for one fucking second?!”

“Not really,” he remarked, “you’re still hot in that.”

“Ugh,” I groaned, “Can we go? Please?”

“Uh, sure, right,” he said, snapping back to reality. His armour peeled on, and he grabbed his guardstaff. “Let’s go.”


	8. Attack of the Black Parade

We rushed out into the hallway, and downstairs to the second floor and the gym. The lights were turned off, but I could see the Halfguard monsters glowing from across the room. There were three of them, all light up with some different light source. One was charged with electricity, another was coated in fire, and the last was just kinda… glowing. 

Solomon and Gordon were fending them off valiantly, but I doubted they would hold on for long.

“HEY! FLESHBAGS!” I shouted at them, “WHY DON’T YOU PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE?!” As Ian’s nervous screech predicted, it was a mistake. All three of the creatures turned to face us. Three different, bestial screeches echoed across the gym.

“Shitfuck,” Ian remarked, pulling out his guardstaff. He turned it into some sci-fi gun, and started shooting. Me? I rushed the fuckers. If anybody wanted them, they would have to get through me. In retrospect, that wasn’t saying much.

Their jaws unhinged, and three powerful elemental blasts poured from their gaping maws. I was flooded by fire that didn’t hurt, enough electricity to probably kill me and… the product of a very humanoid flashlight.

I went sailing across the room, and through the window from the gym to the hall. My head smashed against a locker, and I was out cold.

  
  
  


It was a new resolution of mine never to dream again.

I imagined myself on some alien plane, with strange fixtures like trees of water, and rock clouds. There was no sun in the sky, just the light of the stars. I looked around, and saw shamblin Halfguards. I tried to draw my sword, but nothing was there.  _ I _ wasn’t there. They turned to look in my general direction. Their eyes held sorrow and pain, like they were lost. I was swarmed by fear. Unexpectedly, one of them opened its mouth.

“Please,” it said, “help us.”

“I, I can’t,” I said, “you’re already dead.”

“Not yet,” it answered, “please. You can help us. Save our souls. Please. Help us. Help us.” The others began chanting the ominous chorus.

“Help us. Please, help us. Save us.” They swarmed me, but kept on walking through me. Their eyes were so sad. It hurt to look at them.

“I can’t,” I repeated, “there’s nothing I can do!”

“Save us,” they answered, “bring Alpha back to us. Save our home. Please.”

  
  
  


“Wake up!” Ian shook me by the shoulders. I punched him away. “OW! What the fuck, dude?!”

“Don’t fucking wake me up like that,” I complained, “You could’ve been a monster or some shit.”

“Why is that always your first reaction, punching?” He seemed disgruntled, and generally pissed as well. Are those synonyms? Fuck it. “In case you were wondering, you colossal dickwipe, Solomon and Gordon are okay. You distracted the Halfguard just long enough that they could slice them up.”

The lights were on now. I stood up and saw the entrance to the gym’s bathroom littered with sliced Halfguard chunks. Solomon stared at them disdainfully, and Gordon was heaving heavy sighs of relief. He gave me a curt wave, and I waved back.

“How’s Lena?” I shout-asked him.

He gave me a thumbs up.

“Damn, I was hoping she died. Couldn’t you have slacked off a bit?” He grinned at me, and Solomon looked stared at me with ferocious crossness. He shouted something stern and mentor-y, but I wasn’t paying attention. 

I hopped through the window, cutting myself a little on the glass shrapnel, and walked to the bathrooms. Yup, still screaming.

“Hear anything from Nick and Alex?” I asked.

Shock spread across Solomon’s face. “Shit!” he ejaculated, (it felt like the best word for this situation, okay?) “I forgot!” We all dashed from the room, and quickly searched anywhere they could be. Nothing.

“Looking for someone?” Chaos’ voice echoed through the school. “We’re out front.” We scrambled down to the first floor, and burst through the front doors. Standing in a line opposite us, were two figures, only one of which I recognized, flanked by dozens and dozens of Halfguards.

As should be clear, the figure I recognized was Chaos. He was wearing a grey suit with a gaudy orange tie, and his hands were folded behind his back. A victorious smirk adorned his face. His hair was grey and spiky, and he looked deceptively young compared to when I saw him before.

Beside him was a pale-skinned girl. Her black hair fluttered in the wind, and her head bore a series of black crystals. Two large scars marked her cheeks, they looked like she was breathing from them, as if they were gills carved into her face. She was simply seething with held-back fury, and was twirling a pair of what looked like modified guardstaff hilts in her hands. She was wearing, very fittingly, a dark shirt, and black pants.

“Patience, Xaneeta,” Chaos chided, “this won’t take long.”

She huffed, and the scars opened up. “It’d better not.”

“Now, to business!” Chaos bubbled with assholish glee. He surveyed us all with hungry eyes. “Now, which one of you is Solomon?”

“You know which one I am, Chaos,” Solomon corrected. His armour slipped over his body, and formed an elegant skin-tight suit and cape. “I would hope thirteen billion years would be long enough to be able to recognize a person.”

“Oh, but your form is so… plain,” said Chaos, looking almost disgusted and Solomon’s normalcy, “Couldn’t you have picked something a bit more interesting?”

“You chose almost the same body!” Solomon corrected.

“I was going for aesthetic consistency,” Chaos complained, “it’s not my fault that makes us boring!”

Solomon stuttered and jabbered flusteredly. “I- you- you didn’t need to- AAGH! You are entirely intolerable, you simplistic-”

“Asshole?” Chaos finished, admiring his nails. “Now, I have a proposition to make. You give me-”

Xaneeta nudged him.

“-Us,” He corrected himself, the destiny engine, and we give you your ridiculous students back. Does that seem fair?”

“No,” I inserted, “we won’t give it-”

“Now, now why is he speaking?” Chaos interrupted, “You barely told them about the bloody thing why is he making the decision-”

“He’s  _ not _ ,” Solomon corrected us both, “ _ I _ am making the decision. No, we won’t be giving it to you. That engine is too valuable to let it fall into your hands.”

“Well, unless you dropped it, it wouldn’t really be  _ falling _ , now would it?”

“You are absolutely impossible.”

“Thank you, I know. Now, to sweeten the pot-” He snapped his fingers, and Alex and Nick were forced out of the crowd and onto their knees. Xaneeta stepped forward, and her guardstaffs ignited. Ethereal black blades sprung from them, curved and dripping some dark fluid.

“-if you don’t agree to find it and retrieve it for us, we’ll kill them both right here and now.”

Solomon looked around, weighing his options and chances. “It’s in a pyramid, in Egypt,” he admitted.

We all looked at him with disbelief; even Chaos was confused.

“Well, that was… anticlimactic,” Chaos remarked, “but, sadly, a promise is a promise. Release them.”

Xaneeta disappointedly retracted her blades, and Nick and Alex were set free. The two of them stood with us, now.

“Well this was pointless,” she remarked, “why did we bring all these Halfguard, again?”

Chaos snapped his fingers in sudden realization. “Oh, that’s right! I was lying. We were going to kill you either way!”

We drew our weapons, and, with another snap of Chaos’ fingers, the Halfguard hunched over, ready to attack. “Chaos,” Solomon began to scold.

Chaos smiled a charismatic, shit-eating smile. “Well, you and your pupils do appear to have the last of the First Stones, so I’m afraid this was inevitable. Don’t worry, it will, in fact, be a horribly painful, disembowelment-filled death. Cheerio!” He snapped for the third time, and the flock of Halfguard minions descended upon us.

We slashed and shot at them furiously, but they were too many. I felt like that was going to become a recurring theme.

“THIS IS NOT OKAY” Ian screamed.

“We can take ‘em!” said Alex triumphantly.

“I APPRECIATE YOUR POSITIVITY BUT THIS IS NOT THE FUCKING TIME” was his reply. 

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!” Lena exclaimed. I couldn’t tell if that was a fear “AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!” or an anger “AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”, but I’m not sure it mattered. Bullets cascaded from her gun, but the Halfguard were shaking them off like their were pissy little pebbles.

“What the hell is with these things?” I asked to nobody and anybody, “One minute- agh! -they’re like- AUGH! -hot butter, and next they’re fucking-”

“Carbon nanotubes woven across tungsten plates?” Nick finished. I have no fucking clue where that came from.

“SOMETHING LIKE THAT, YEAH!” I shouted back at him. A Halfguard grabbed my blade, and somehow extinguished the fire. “THAT’S NEW!” It struck me in the jaw, and I crashed into my team. I was left nigh unconscious (nigh? The fuck kinda word is that) when a fearsome shout erupted.

“ENOUGH!” rang Solomon’s voice, with a thunderous depth nobody had ever heard from him. The Halfguard stepped back, startled. Solomon pointed his spear at them all. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

“Because,” Chaos proposed, “unlike the Halfguard you faced before, they are not shells of the long dead.” The helmets of the Halfguards all peeled back, exposing pale, rotting faces. Each had its own hideous depiction of sadness or dismay, and stared at us with lifeless eyes. Ian gagged a little, at let out a minuscule gasp.

“I already knew this,” Solomon said, “what you have done to them makes them no more than the shells I destroyed.”

“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong!” Chaos corrected, “These ones are… well, they’re the same, but they’re considerably more depressing.”

I now remembered what Solomon had said about getting the enemy talking. I saw the opening, ignited my sword, and I slashed the Halfguard down. Their bodies were set ablaze, and the others (except for a nervously quivering Ian) took a cue. By the dozen, Halfguard were falling apart, shattered and butchered into slices of vaguely human meat.

“Well, this appears to be, more or less, a failure,” Chaos noted, “Well, I must be going! Your information is vague at best, but we certainly have enough time. Come along Xaneeta! The Pharaohs await!” He snapped his fingers, which was now getting annoying, and a portal of blackness appeared from nowhere.

“The what?” Xaneeta asked.

“I’ll explain later.” The pair of them walked into the blackness, and I tried to follow them. Solomon held me back.

“Let them go.”

“Why?” I asked, “He’s going to find the destiny engine! We can’t let him take it!”

“He’s not going to find it,” Solomon announced, “he’s not the only one who can lie. The pyramids, what a ridiculous place to hide something of value! No, the engine is hidden somewhere much more inconspicuous.”

“Like where?”

“The school.”


	9. The Bullshit Awakens

Solomon and we puttered around the library, randomly pulling books.

“So, quick question,” I asked, “what the hell is this about?”

“Your cliche of hidden rooms behind bookcases didn’t come from nowhere,” Solomon answered with his cryptic flair, flicking through graphic novels. “Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten which one.”

“Uh,” Nick slurred, “what about this one?” He held up a  _ Cosmopolitan _ magazine.

“Nick, that’s, uh,” Alex said, “that’s… not close. And I’m talking best case scenario here.” He put the magazine down sadly.

Ian was smacking his head against a bookshelf. I walked over, sighed, and asked “What’s wrong?”

“The image of sliced up man meat has been drilled into my head.” He looked up and realized something. “That sounded gayer than I was expected.”

I snorted a bit, and I heard Alex laugh too. “Well, you’re not wrong. You feeling alright?”

“Remember what I said? Run that through your head and ask yourself that question again. Bluh!” He stuck his tongue out in a semi-comedic fashion.

Alex walked on over and gave him a pat on the shoulder, and a gentle hug. Mind you, a gentle hug for Alex is a chokehold for anyone else.

“Thanks,” Ian wheezed.

A thought popped into my head. “I just realized I’m still not wearing clothes.”

“Well, there’s one way to fix that,” Solomon suggested, “your armour can generate clothing if you like. Usually it’s just underclothes, but you can get it to a full outfit if you know how.”

I focused a little bit, and the armour peeled off. It left behind a black skin-tight jumpsuit, a bit like something from  _ Star Trek _ , with a little bit of red lining to it. “Mmmmnope, still too fetishy.”

“Well,” Solomon said, “if you need it, there’s some abandoned clothes in the lost and found.”

  
  
  


The lost and found was pathetic. All I found was torn jeans (in womens’ sizes) and a red t-shirt (also womens’ sizes). There was a shitty pair of orange shoes, and, grudgingly, I slipped into the bathroom by the library, and put them on.

I examined myself in the mirror. The shirt fit well enough, but the pants accentuated my ass.

“Great,” I remarked, “I'm eye candy now.”

“Hurry your ass up, fuckbrain!” Lena demanded.

“I'm coming!” I complained back, “just give me a minute.”

Because she's stupid and impatient, Lena stormed into the bathroom, and pulled me out by my neck. Not the shirt’s neck, my neck. The fleshy one that helps you breathe, unless there's a crazy person gripping it like a slab of meat in need of tenderizing.

I gasped my way into the library, where Lena threw me at a bookshelf.

The books and I clattered to floor, but the shelf pulled back, and receded into the wall. 

“OW!” I moaned, “Could you fucking NOT?!”

“Shut up, whoreboy,” she said, “your dumb ass found the hole.”

“That- unfh- is a very strange combination of words you just said.”

“I said-” Lena prepared to toss an Oxford dictionary, “SHUT YOUR FUCKHOLE!” The Oxford collided with my ass with incredible force.

“Quit it!!!” I screamed at her, as she prepared a hardcover copy of The Hobbit.

I looked up to see Alex wrestling her to the floor. “He said to  _ stop _ .”

Lena rolled away. “Fuck you too, then.” We both stood up, and examined the recessed bookshelf. It had opened to a long corridor, only dimly lit by some unseen light-source. The only volume remaining on the shelf was a copy of the first Twilight book.

“Of course, how did I forget!” Solomon exclaimed, giving himself  a slap to the forehead, “I wanted to make sure nobody would pick the book by accident, so I made it one nobody would ever touch!”

Ian made an attempt not to laugh at this. He failed, and burst into snorts of unhinged, maniacal laughter. The rest of us couldn’t resist either, save for Lena and Solomon, who stared at us sternly and disapprovingly. Even Gordon was left gasping for air.

“What? It’s a terrible book,” Solomon said, “I honestly couldn’t make it past the third bloody paragraph.”

“That is honestly the funniest thing I’ve heard in my fucking life,” I said, “it’s just- pffffhahaha! It’s fucking TWILIGHT!”

“You stating that fact is not making it any more endearing to me.”

“Well, maybe we should- heheh- get a move on,” Alex suggested, having managed to contain the stupid within her.

“Before we do,” Solomon brought up, “Ian, there’s something I need to give you.” Solomon walked over to Ian, and put his hands firmly on the sides of Ian’s head. Ian looked around confused for a moment.

“Wuh- what are you doing?” he asked.

“It’ll make sense when you need it to,” Solomon said. “Another thing you need to know, is that the Engine is protected.”

  
  
  


We made our way down the tunnel, and Solomon continued his lecture. “When I designed the defense for the Engine, I had to make sure only truly good Guardians could make it to the Destiny Engine itself. So, I designed trials for it, each a combination of two elemental powers. The first trial was getting to know me; I call it the Trial of Knowledge and Friendship. The others, however, are more… physically daunting. They require peak physical condition, and mastery of the Elements.”

“Sounds pleasant,” I said, “So… when do we get there?”

“Give it a second.” The darkness closed in on us, and I felt the floor give out.

I started falling, and started screaming. Four other screams tell me the others were facing a similar predicament.

Lena’s scream was closer to a battle cry, and Ian sounded like a four year old girl with a gun to her head being told to perform a Fall Out Boy themed opera. Alex’s scream was interspersed with hoots of exhilarated laughter, and Nick’s screaming was, unlike himself, relatively normal. The screams faded, and the only one I heard was Alex’s, now.

I saw something below me, a fiery red light. Then, a metal grate came into focus. I quickly activated my armour, before crashing into the grate with a clanging thud. Alex landed on top of me.

She stood up, startled. “Oh, shit! Dude, are okay?”

“It’s okay,” I said, taking a deep breath, “Your fall broke my back.”

She snorted, and lent me a hand. I saw she was wearing her own brown armour, now. I took a moment to take in the surroundings.

We were in a giant room, closer to an arena, with metal grate-built platforms marking a path to an exit. The trouble was, the grates were floating in lava. Because, obviously, we could never suffer enough.

The door opposite us looked to be inscribed with runes, and was made of a coppery metal. It looked like something from Lord of the Rings.

“This must one of Solomon’s trials,” Alex noticed, “looks like fire and metal. Is metal an element? I feel like it should be.”

“I'm going with yes, and/or Solomon doesn't know what ‘two elements’ means.” I surveyed the grates again, and tried to formulate a plan of attack. Then, I noticed the platform was sinking.

“Think you can swim in that stuff?” Alex half-jokingly suggested.

“I’d say that's a possibilty,” I said, saying it was a possibility. “But even if I can, this platform is still going down. Looks like you're going to have to cross the lake on the platforms.”

“Guess so. Let's Minecraft this shit.”

“What?” She shoved me into the pool, taking the riskiest risk ever to be risked. Thankfully, the lava was thick and dense enough for me to hit my face on it. Flames licked my body, but they didn't burn. 

Alex jumped from one platform to the next, and landed shakily. “Not dead so far,” she said, “let's keep it that way.”

I stood up, and gave her a thumbs up.

“Wow, lava is dumber than I expected. How are you standing on that?”

I shrugged. “Explanations don't matter right now. You still have more… Uh, Minecraft ahead of you.”

She gave me a double thumbs up, and kept jumping. 

I trudged through the lava. it felt like weird, warm snow under my feet. A jet of fire blew up in my face, and I noticed it was part of a wall of fire, blocking me and Alex.

“Well, this is shitty,” Alex mentioned, “Solomon said we needed mastery of the elements, yeah?”

“What's your point?”

“Mind doing something masterful, bud?”

“Oh, that, right.” I focused on the firewall (oh, the puns I could've made), and made a sweeping motion with my hands. The fire obeyed, and blew itself away. 

“Thanks!” Alex jumped to the next platform, and right on until the end.

I was moving slower than before, I noticed. I looked down, and saw that the lava was engulfing my feet. I tried to pull out, but I was stuck.

“Shit! Little help?”

“Like how?”

“I don't know, you're the one on the platform!” The lava was getting to my shins now. I tried to pull the lava away with my powers, but it wouldn't budge. “Fuck, uh, Guardstaff?”

“Right, yeah!” She pulled out the dinky little handle, and it lengthened into an absurdly long sword.

“Less sharp, please!”

“Sinkers can't be choosers, buddy, grab on!”

I gripped the sword (ow) and did my best to climb along it. Alex looked like she was straining. “Are you gonna take much longer? I don't think I can wait that long, dude.”

“FUCK YOU,” I shouted back at her, “THIS IS FUCKING HARD TOO!”

“Cool your jets, man.”

“YOU COOL YOUR FUCKING JETS!”

“YOU’RE ALMOST HERE SHUT UP ALREADY!” She was right. If I swung a little, I could reach the platform. I shuffled along the sword, and touched down. 

“I told you, asshat.” She pulled the sword in, and bopped my shoulder playfully.

“Thanks for the sword then,” I turned to the door. “Let’s see what's behind mysterious vaguely door-shaped exit number one.”

“Shouldn't it be number two, though? What with the bookshelf and such.”

“Is that entirely relevant?”

“... No.”

“Thank you.” I opened the door, and quickly decided sinking into vaguely warm lava was the least of my problems.


	10. Of Flesh and Mistakes

When I emerged on the other side of the door, which shut behind me, I was faced with two of the most hideous sights ever to be beheld.  
The first and most immediate was that the fire pit had been traded for walls of throbbing, hideous flesh. Veins popped red and blue, and pulsated with disgusting rhythm. It looked like something you’d see in a horror movie. A corridor of the stuff split into three more paths, and I gathered it just became more labyrinthian and abhorrent the farther in you got.  
The other, more horrible sight, was Nick, in all his absurd lime-armoured glory, now sporting a godless combination of white-people dreads and and a man bun. I could handle the writhing meat that constituted this next trial, but I could not stand this most cardinal sin.  
I drew my sword in self defense of his fucking abstract abomination of a hairdon’t. “Where’s Alex?”  
“Where’s Lena?” He looked completely dumbfounded, which, if I’m being honest, is quite normal for him. “We, like, opened the door, and now there’s this. What gives?”  
“The trials must be switching us up,” I concluded, “making sure we can’t get too comfortable with each other.”  
“Or, like, something fucked up,” Nick supposed, “like they fucking broke the space mover.” He made “pew pew, zap zap” laser noises.  
Why, of all people, did Nick have to be on my team? Why, for the love of fucking everything, did he have to be a Guardian? “I… I don’t think that’s what happened.”  
“Ah, but what if it did, mi amigo?” Actual Hell would be more merciful than this. He sniffed the air. “Hmm, high concentration of oxygen, but rapidly depleting.” He stroked the meaty wall. “Consistent with the chemical composition of human flesh, though maybe a bit warmer than it should be.”  
It was my turn to be dumbfounded. “What the actual fuck?”  
“Like, not the fake fuck, you mean?” By Alpha, nobody could be more fucking paradoxical.  
“I- What?! You just went from talking about the fucking chemical composition of the bloody walls, then-! AGH!”  
“Dude, chill,” he suggested, “I got some weed if you need it.”  
“I- fucking, NO!”  
“Your loss, dude,” he pulled out a paper cylinder, and lit it with a match he pulled from his pocket. “Hey, I’m gonna need you to cut here, dude.”  
“Why?”  
“Just fucking trust me, dude.”  
I ignited my sword, and cut a circular chunk from the wall. It seemed to writhe and squirm as I cut it. It fell to the floor with a sickening squelch. A small hole was left in the wall, which revealed more labyrinthian walls behind it.  
“Now, Imma need you to, like, burn it a bit more, but not like till it’s ashes or some shit. Like a steak.”  
I waved my sword over the hideous chunk, and burned it until it was a pleasing brown.  
“Sweet, my dude,” he took the blunt out, picked up the chunk, and- heaven help us all, -took a fucking massive bite. “Duuuude, this shit is good. No wonder people become cannibals!”  
I wanted to stab my brain, eyes, heart, ears, and lungs out, specifically in that order.  
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I complained, “can we get on with the trial? Please?”  
“Uh, sure dude,” he said, putting the blunt back in his mouth and the meat slab under his arm, “all you had to do was ask.”  
He sauntered into the maze, and I followed. The air seemed to be getting thinner the deeper we went in.  
“You mentioned high amounts of oxygen, yeah? Where’d that go.”  
He gave a shrug. “I think it’s breathing. There’s some carbon dioxide buildup, here.”  
“Okay, so, I thought you were the Guardian of Acid. Why are you picking up on all this?”  
“Fuck, dude,” was his answer, “I don’t know. Shit’s stupid.”  
“Brilliant,” I said, clapping sarcastically, “Steven fucking Hawking couldn’t do any bloody better, now could he?”  
“Who?’  
I nearly cut my own fucking head off. “You know Einstein, right?”  
“Huh? Never heard of her, she sounds hot.”  
“We’re all going to hell in a handbasket, aren’t we? This is just fucking damnation foreplay, isn’t it?”  
“Woah, dude,” he said, putting up his hands, “I don’t wing that way, my guy.”  
“I- ARGH!”  
“Ah, sexually frustrated, I see. It’s cool dude, I know you’re gay.”  
“I’M NOT!”  
“Whatever you need to tell yourself, dude, I know the truth.” He took a long drag of the blunt. I wanted to disembowel the both of us, but the threat of armageddon was ultimately discouraging.  
We came upon a strange chamber. In it, people were strapped to the walls by fleshy, meaty tentacles. Some of them I recognized, but one stood out.  
“MOM!” I turned my sword into a gun, and shot at the tentacles. I missed. The flaming bullet pierced her head. The tentacles retreated, and she slid down the wall, slowing becoming ablaze. My hands trembled on the gun.  
“No. No, no no no no NO!” I grasped her.  
“Ajay, why?” Tears were streaming down her face. Her eyes went dark, and then went bright with fire.  
I screamed to the skin-coated sky. “NO!!! NO!!! NO!!!”  
“Uh, dude-” Nick encroached on us.  
I aimed my gun at him. “Back. The fuck. Away.”  
“Dude, that’s not real.”  
“WHAT?!” I screamed at him, and grabbed him by the neck, strangling the idiot. “My mom is fucking dead. Does this seem like a joke to you?”  
He squeaked something out. “She’s- the walls-!”  
I released my grip. “What?”  
He took a big breath and said “She’s part of the wall, dude.” He poked at the body, and turned her over. Sure enough, tiny tendrils fused her seeming suit to the wall. She was just the flesh, a fabrication.  
“What the fucking hell,” I said, relieved, “why the fuck would Solomon do this to us?”  
He gave a definite shrug. “I dunno, space reasons.”  
“Brilliant. Now where’s the damn exit?”  
“Uh, dude? I hear something.”  
I turned around, and, like goth clockwork, Halfguard popped up from the flesh. They assembled themselves like video game models clipping through the floor. Even if they were fake, they were still a problem.  
“Got a sword?” I asked.  
He held up a green katana, dripping with sickly fluid. “You know it.”  
We rushed the Halfguard, and sliced them to fiery, citrus-scented bits. In an act I would regret for all eternity, I high-fived Nick.  
I pulled my hand away from him like he was diseased, which, as he was a Guardian of Acid, was likely close to the truth.  
“We are never to speak of that again, you hear me?”  
“Speak of what?”  
“Exactly.” I looked around, and realized we still had no idea where the exit was.   
Nick came at me with a sobering reminder. “Dude, we’re still losing oxygen. We might want to, like, find the magic space door.”  
The magic space door. The magic. Fucking. Space door. Unfortunately, I had nothing better to call it, either. “Fine, let’s get to the magic space door. Where’s the magic space door?”  
“Uh, fuck, dude, I dunno.” Great. Just absolutely fucking brilliant.  
“Well, that’s great. Fine, maybe let’s get creative with it, then.” I plunged my gladius into flesh wall, which squealed as I punctured it. I carved a hole, just big enough to climb through, and stepped through it.  
“Come on,” I told him, “if we slice deep enough, we might find the exit.” He followed me, as I kept dissecting screaming holes in the walls. That is not a series of words I think I’ll ever be feasibly able to use ever again. As we got farther, the air got thinner. I was running out of breath.  
“H… how much further, do you think?” I asked him, struggling to keep my eyes open.  
“Fuck, dude.” Of course.  
“Wait,” I said, now realizing a horrible mistake, “fire uses up oxygen, yeah?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Then I should probably not be using this.” I put my sword by my side, and my armour absorbed it. That was one of my favourite things about this suit: how much it disregarded the basic rules of the universe. “Maybe you should take a turn cutting.”  
“Dude, I’m not like, suicidal, you know that, right?” Idiot.  
“No, not like that, you dumbfuck,” I scolded, “cutting holes in the wall! You use your fucking limeade sword, or whatever the hell.”  
He pulled out his katana guardstaff, and sliced for me.  
It took us nearly an hour. By then, I was bleary eyed, and was breathing in more carbon dioxide than a whole bloody forest situated next to the world’s most ridiculously oversized car.  
“We… we fuckin’ made it, dude.”  
“That’s great,” I said, almost tipping over. “Can we op…”  
I tipped over. There was no more air to breathe, and I fell into a dream.


	11. Invasion of my Nightmares

I should really invest in some energy drinks, because I really should not be allowed to sleep, like, ever.

In this new, horrible dream, I saw a black planet, crashing into another, earth-like world. The earth planet cracked apart, and its fragments gravitated to the black planet. The fragments melded to the black planet, and I zoomed out to see other, almost synonymous planets, hanging in space.

One by one, the planets were destroyed and amalgamated into some horrible shadowy mass. The green grass and blue oceans were broken, and the resulting planet of darkness shifted until it became a cruel landscape of horrors. Water turned black, trees turned to fire, clouds turned to stone, and volcanoes turned to mountains that spat ice.

_ What could have caused this, _ I wondered.

“Dark Omega caused this,” said a voice. I spun around, and saw Chaos, in his gray suit, floating suspended in the void of space.

“It is his vision to see the universe as one. A great world of all worlds, meshed into one beautiful mess of destruction.” He seemed truly overjoyed.

I tried to grasp at my guardstaff, but nothing was there. Then, I noticed I wasn’t there.

“Oh, right. I forgot to give you a form in this dream. Forgive me, I’m a bit rusty at creating dreams.”

_ Wait, you’re the one who gave me this dream? _

“Yes, I am. All your visions have been my creations. You see, fear is something I excel at bringing out in people. But they’re not just dreams, of course. Everything you’ve seen has been true.”

_ But those halfguard were calling out to me. Was… was that real? _

“... Okay, well, that was a bit of a fib. Those halfguard do exist, though. Corpses, brought back to life by the great Dark Omega. Oh, how I love them! Minds of the living, tormented into madness, broken beyond repair! Brought to life to serve their great master of darkness.”

_ But why are you telling me this? _

“Well, regrettably, myself and the first Guardians were created for the sheer purpose of exposition. When the universe was new, Alpha needed someone who actually knew what was what. We were their teachers. You might've noticed your precious Solomon falls under that category as well.

“Well, I'd love to keep fulfilling my eternal purpose, but that's universes of boring. How about…” 

An asteroid floated under us, and Chaos descended to the ground. I felt my body taking shape, and gravity brought me plummeting towards the asteroid. 

Chaos pulled out a strange looking guardstaff. “... A fight?”

I materialized my guardstaff, and my gladius emerged. I ran at Chaos, but he froze me where I stood.

“Ah, ah ah! Not yet!” He wagged a finger at me. “I still need to select some fight music. Now, do you prefer 2000s emo rock or 2010s dubstep?” He swiped at the air like it was a tablet, operating some invisible machine.

I can't believe this. I was floating in space on an asteroid, holding a sword made of fire, and an ancient and powerful being was asking my preference in music. Things couldn't get much more absurd than this.

“Oh, balls to it. 2000s rock it is!” Driving, violent music played from nowhere and everywhere. “There we are. Now, green light!”

My body went back along its course, and Chaos stepped artfully out of my way. I turned to face him again, and he kept through the air, a pale orange rapier sword forming from his strange guardstaff.

I raised my gladius to block it, but he landed a kick to my chest. He bounced off me, and I tumbled backwards, drumbeats punctuating each collision.

I threw my sword at him, but he caught it. A guitar riff shot through the air like metallic thunder. He turned it in his hand, and my fiery red gladius turned the same pale shade of orange as his rapier. Fuck.

“Well, this is hardly fair. You're an idiot, and I'm the summation of all knowledge ever to exist. This is hardly entertaining.” He threw my sword at me, and laughed. “There we go!”

I picked up my guardstaff, and decided to take a different path.

I formed it into a shield, and smacked it, taunting Chaos. “Come on! Let's do this!” Realistically speaking, I don’t think “taunting chaos”, in any sense, is a good idea.

He grinned a manic smile, and ran at me, morphing the rapier into a lance. The lance clanged against my shield, but I held my ground. The lance, however, was shattered from the sheer force of the impact.

Chaos stared at his hand, where the guardstaff had broken apart. Now he was pissed. He scowled at me, and threw a fist. My shield blocked it, and his hand was set on fire. He shook it, failing to put out the flames.

“Ach!” he complained, “this isn't fair either! Fine, if I can't fight you, I will break you!”

My limbs went taut. The music turned ominous, and Chaos smiled again. 

“If you fight,” he said, “you will only suffer. Join us, and the end will be swift.”

“Why do you want to kill me, anyway?” I asked.

“That's not what I was talking about. Not your end, not something that puny. No, the end of the world, better, the end of the universe!”

“How’s that work, then?” I asked.

“It’s quite simple really.” He started to monologue, and the music slowed. “Dark Omega needs all 31 of the First Stones, one for each of the elements. Including, of course, Alpha’s Stone. As it so happens, there are only three First Stones he has left to obtain. Reality, Fire, and Knowledge.” 

Something clicked in my head. Ian and I were the Guardians of Reality and Fire. Lastly-

“Solomon,” I whispered.

“Exactly,” he said, “finally, I can exact my revenge upon him.”

“So why does he need them, then?”

“Oh, hell if I know,” Chaos admitted, “some space shit. Really, it’s the destiny engine we need. It’s base properties modify the fabric of time and space, allowing his amalgamous abode to travel here faster than the speed of light.”

“His what?”

“Nevermind.”

“Can we just fight some more or something? This is getting boring.”

“Not until I’m done with my exposition,” he chided. He looked suddenly aware of something. “Wait, why am I telling you anything?”

“Beats me.”

“Well, it couldn’t hurt,” Chaos decided. “I’m so tired of Egypt. There’s so many bloody pyramids, it’s exhausting! Executing locals is fun enough, though.” He perked up. “Where are you, right now?”

I didn’t want to answer, but my lips moved without my consent. “The library at our school. You were just there an hour or two ago.” Shitshitshitshitshitfuck.

He cackled menacingly. “Oh, the wonders of being in control of one’s mindscape! No more sun and sand for me! Nova Scotia is where it’s at!

“Now,” he took my guardstaff from my stiffened hand, and turned it into a knife. “Wake up.”

He stabbed me through the throat, and the world crumbled around me. Blood seeped from the wound, and Chaos backed away into the entropic madness before me.

“See you at the end of the world, baby!”


	12. Everything is Stupid and I Hate Life

I woke up in a new trial room, gasping for air. I wasn't sure if it was because of the oxygen deficiency, or the dream stabbing, but either way I needed my lungs to work, badly.

Ian was leaning over me, pumping my chest, evidently trying to do the job I'd just done. 

“Ian! Stop! I'm awake already!”

He moved back, and wiped his brow. “Oh, thank Mata Nui! I thought you were a goner for a minute there!”

“Well, thanks for trying, anyway,” I said. Then, something became clear. “Wait, that was- wasn't that CPR?”

“... Maybe.”

“Did you- did you do the mouth thing?”

“... Maybe…”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I was trying to save your life, okay?!” He was pouting indignantly. “We can't all be hot girls!”

“That wouldn't have made it better! It's still weird!”

“Fine, then!” he huffed, “I still need you for this trial, asshat.”

“Help me up, then,” I stuck out my hand. He pulled, and almost tipped over in the process. If he had fallen over, he most certainly would have fallen to his death, because we had landed ourselves on a tiny platform, overlooking a seemingly endless flight of stairs.

True to the “go fuck yourself” mature of these trials, those stairs were arranged in some MC Escher/Monument Valley clusterfucks of eye and brain warping puzzles.

“Well that looks like hell,” Ian remarked. “Glad I didn't fall.”

“Good thing I didn't push you,” I added.

“Wow, thanks. Good to know I can count on you for help.”

I assessed the situation. The door to the next trial was about twenty metres up, and they only way to get there was by navigating the labyrinthian brain-cracker before us. Great, just what I always wanted.

To out left and right were two paths, each leading to a clusterfuck (yes I know I used that one already but it fits shut up) of a path. The room was vaguely square, but it varied. It seemed to accordion, adding and subtracting sides at will.

“So,” I said, “how do we wanna do this?”

“Successfully?”

“Good idea.”

“But, if we're talking seriously, I think this room is based on perception. So, if it looks right from one point of view, it is.”

“And that means?”

“Say I'm looking at you from across the room. You're faced with a gap that looks impossible to jump, but from where I am, you're already on the other side. If it works like that, then seeing something from different points of view is essential. I suggest splitting up.”

“Hell, man,” I said, “the only people who could understand that are you and Solomon.”

“That is understandable,” he told me, “I'm not even sure I can fully comprehend it.”

“Smaller words, please?”

“Those were small words!” he complained, “You could totally understand that!”

“It was a fucking  _ joke _ , dude,” I informed him, “let's just do this shit already.” He went left, in a seemingly upwards direction, except he was leaning forward up the stairs like he was sideways. That's it, I officially hate space magic, it's now complete and utter bullshit.

I went right, but the path did something fucky, and I ended up sideways, at which point I had given up on any sense or reason.

I was now standing parallel to the void-like abyss of the bottom of the room. Having an endless pit just to the left of you can be very disconcerting. I walked along the path of fuck-you, and ended up on a platform, now completely upside down.

I looked to my left, and Ian was now walking on the wall. 

“Well, this is stupid,” I remarked.

“No shit,” Ian confirmed, looking up at me, “hold on, there's a pit beneath you.”

“No,” I corrected him, “it's just a platform.”

“No, no, it's really not. Remember, nothing is as it seems here, except when it is. Wait, no, that's dumb. Just take my word on it, okay?”

“I'll be fine, Ian,” I told him, “but, if it makes you feel better, if I need it, you can do the mouth thing.”

He raised his eyebrows cheekily. Dear Alpha, what the hell have I done.

I went against his advice, and stepped forward. Suddenly, I was shot upwards (my down, Ian's right) and landed on a set of stairs. “Fuck!” I exclaimed.

“What did I tell you?” He said smugly, now standing right side up.

“Fine,” I admitted, “You were right, I was wrong.”

“I think ‘stupid’ would be the proper adjective.”

He laughed at his stupid joke, and I growled at him.

I kept walking. I decided to make a little conversation.

“So what is it about the halfguard that freaks you out so much?” I asked.

“Well, first off, they're dead,” he started, “that and they're the first things that have ever tried to murder me that I've been obliged to murder back.”

“You say that like someone's tried to murder you  _ before _ .”

“Something like that. Is it safe to cross here? There's, like, an empty pit here.”

I looked over at him. It was just a set of stairs. “You're cool.”

He stepped forward, looked a bit wobbly, but was alright.

“Also, generally, I don't like killing things,” he continued, “like, if there's a spider or something in my way, I will actually make an effort to avoid it.”

“Dude, it's just a spider,” I said, “just fucking squash it.”

“But it's a life, dude!”

“It's like, the size of a jellybean at most!”

“I worry about you sometimes, dude.”

I was about to step forward, but Ian interjected. “Hold on, you can't cross there. You're going to need to climb along the ledge.”

“This ridiculous,” I muttered. I lowered myself, and grabbed the ledge. Now, the door was almost beneath me. “So why do you worry about me, then?”

“Because sometimes you seem a little, I dunno, unhinged? Like with that spider bit there.”

“What's so bad about killing- ungh!- spiders?”

“It just seems wrong to me. Like, killing anything is, just, bad.”

“You do you, buddy.”

“You're gonna want to let go right now, too. You're about to hit a wall.”

“Do you think I can climb the wall, though?”

“I wouldn't.”

I swung my body, and landed on a wall. The exit was now really close. If I looked forward, I could see it.

Ian was a bit preoccupied. “A little help here, please? I need to make sure I can cross.”

“Sure thi- oh, oh fuck.” He wasn't standing on anything now. He was hovering over the bottomless black chasm.

“What? What's wrong?”

“Maybe, uh, maybe don't move?” I tried to think of something to do here, but nothing came to mind. I thought of maybe doing that guardstaff trick again, but I don't think Ian’s hands would deal well with a fire sword.

“This place is based on perception, yeah?” I asked him.

“Yeah… What're you thinking about?”

I stuck my finger up to my face, and positioned it so that tiny, distant Ian was standing on it. “Just keep walking forward.”

“Okay, then.” He walked along my finger for a couple steps, then picked up on it. “Wait, this is your fucking finger isn't it?”

“Just keep walking!” I commanded.

He treaded along my finger, as I moved it so that he was walking to the door.

“Tell me,” he inquired, “how much… usage has this one gotten?”

“Can you not?”

“I'm just seeing some obvious double entendres, is all.”

“Oh, I hate you.”

“I mean, same, though.”

I turned myself a bit, so I was facing the exit door. “Give me one good reason I shouldn't drop you.”

“I'm ruggedly handsome,” he joked.

“Your face is a pale potato.”

“Fine, I'm  _ russet _ -ly handsome.”

“Don't force my fucking hand, here.”

He smiled cheekily at me. “I think I can get off here, yeah?”

I doubled checked his positioning. My finger was now firmly beside the exit. “Yeah, you're good. Be careful, though.”

“Why should I be careful?”

“I don't know! Space magic shit likes to pop out of nowhere a lot of the time. Just watch yourself, is all.”

“I can handle myself, thank you very much.” He snickered.

“What was that?”

“What was what?”

“You snickered.”

“Oh, that,” he chuckled some more, “thought of a dick joke, there.”

“Of course you did. Just step off, would ya?”

“Alright, alright. I'm goin’.” He stepped forward, and immediately flipped upside down, landing on the ceiling and dropped on his head. He screamed high and long.

“Oh, hell.” I remarked. I realized I had stuck myself where I was. “Can you-” he screamed over me. “Fuck you!” I shouted back. I hopped over some stairs, twisted in some gravity well or whatever, and landed on the platform with Ian. I yanked him up.

“Thanks,” he said, rubbing his head. His cheeks were streaked with tears.

“No problem.” Then, a problem. I heard a door open on the other side of the room. A squadron of disoriented Halfguard flew through the entrance on wings of elemental energy.

“That's new!” I exclaimed. “We need to get the- Oh, fuck.” The handle for the door, now above us, was too far away to grab. 

“Think of something!” Ian urged me.

“I thought you were the smart one?!”

“Well, you're clearly the protagonist! You're in red!”

“WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?!?!”

He looked puzzled for a moment, then a lightbulb switched on inside his head. “Hop on my shoulders.”

“What?”

“Trust me!”

I climbed him, and wrapped my legs around his neck. I outstretched my hand, and grasped for the doorknob.

“They're getting closer!” he warned.

“I got that!” My hand was just a few centimeters short. “Can you jump at all?”

“I'll just topple over!”

“DO IT!”

“OKAY!”

He leaped about an inch, and I grasped the knob. “Gotcha!”

Ian keeled backwards into the wall, and I tipped into the next room.


	13. Old Televisions and Broken Speakers

I tumbled backwards and upwards into a world of black and white. The first thing I noticed about it was how stark the colours were. The darkest black you had ever seen made up the room, and the ceiling was a starlike white. Even I had become dichromatic. I showed up to my own eyes as a black mass in a red shirt. What kind of arthouse idiot designed this place?

I stood up, and each creak of my body was thunderous. I clapped my hands over my ears, but that made a painful sound, too. I decided just to stop moving. Then, I made the mistake of putting on my armour. Each clink of the slippery metal stung my ears. If the armour hadn’t covered me in red already, I would've been painted crimson from bleeding ears.

With the suit on, I didn't make a sound. At least, I couldn't hear myself making a sound. In fact, the room produced no sounds to hear. Not sure if any of this was a good thing or a bad thing, but I decided to roll with it.

At my side was someone in blue Guardian armour.

For a moment, I forgot I might kill us by talking, and asked “Gordon?” I expected the sound to echo like hell, but it stayed in my head.

Somehow hearing me, he nodded soundlessly. He pointed across the room. The door stood there, blazingly white, plain as day, seemingly unprotected. At which point, I might add, Admiral Ackbar would have had an aneurysm.

“It can't be that easy,” I said to myself. I took a step, and felt something sharp under my foot.

“Ow!” I stepped back. “What the hell was that?!”

Gordon made the shape of a triangle with his hands. Spikes.

“How the hell are we getting across, then?” I said to myself again. “Maybe we can walk across?” Then I realized that I had put my armoured foot on it, and it had still pierced something. If I put all my weight on it, I don't think I would have feet to step with by the time we got to the door. “On second thought, that's stupid.” Gordon nodded in agreement.

“What about powers, then?” I continued to ask myself. Unfortunately, fire and lightning wouldn't do much to help us here. We'd fry ourselves, one way or another, if we so much as tried. I leant against the wall, and discovered it was coated in spikes, too.

“Fuck!” I cried out. My back stung like hell. I noticed Gordon was doing something. He was miming the flapping of wings. With minimal understanding of this, all I saw was a bright blue idiot waving at me.

I waved back with one hand. He shook his head, and started flapping more forcefully.

“Fly?” I asked. He nodded enthusiastically. “Well why didn't you just  _ say _ that?”

He held his head in his hands like I had asked the dumbest question in the history of space. He held up one finger, and shook his head, then another finger, and shook again. He gestured forcefully to the door.

It was being smacked at from the other side. Halfguard were trying to get in. 

I remembered I had left Ian on the other side of the door. I furrowed my brow, hoping he was okay. Because if he was, that meant I could smack him around for being an idiot.

“Okay, uh, think of something!” I commanded us. Nothing came. Then, something stupid came.

“What happens if we let them in?” Gordon grasped his head in terror.

As our group’s resident jackass, I opened the door. Halfguard came spilling in, and I continued my reign of “what the fuck are you thinking you absolute moron” by grabbing a Halfguard, and riding it.

The Halfguard struggled under my control, but I managed to pilot it across the room. It crashed us into the door, and I held up my gladius, and rammed the blade through its chest. Next, off came the head. I think. It's hard to tell when all you can see of somethings is its bright green bright green wings.

“Gordon, come on!” I could see black hands grasp at him, and colourful wings surround him. In an act of impulse, I made my guardstaff into a gun. I took a shot in the dark, aiming for Halfguard heads. Red bullets seared across the room, and found homes in Halfguard skulls and hearts.

“They won't stay dead for long!” I told Gordon. “Any ideas?”

Gordon, in all his blue brilliance, made wings grow from his back. He spared across the chamber, and landed before the Halfguard body. He gave a thumbs up.

I was furious. “Why didn't you do that earlier?!”

He tapped his head and shrugged.

“You. Forgot. You had wings.” This was getting exhausting. “Can you just, like, say something for once?”

He shook his head, and then made some shapes with his hands.

“And that means…?”

He made an insisting sweep of the hands. He made a motion like he was strangling someone.

“You okay, buddy?” If he wasn't monochrome, his eye would be twitching furiously and vengefully.

I was right when I said the Halfguard wouldn’t be dead for long. The headless corpse shot up from the ground, its once green wings now a bright, electric blue.

“Yah!” I screamed. The Halfguard did something like it was trying to scream, but it was obviously missing its head. It came out more like a furious gurgling.

I couldn’t see it too well, but I felt a hand grasp my neck. “Help!” I tried to scream. I think you can understand why I used the word “tried” there.

The grip of the near-invisible Halfguard tightened, and, yet again, I was struggling for breath. The Halfguard spread its wings, and flew upwards, taking me with it. The white ceiling brought to light the shape of the creature. The neck dripped cold blood on my eyes. Ew.

It let go of me, and I was sent plummeting to the spike-riddled floor, face first. Then, amazingly, I felt something grab me by the shoulders.

It held on tight, and I was flying again. “Oh, please don’t let this be another one,” I hoped. I looked up, and Gordon was there, in all his bright blue glory. “Yay!” I cheered quietly.

He looked sternly down upon me (I think that's what it was). I tried to shrug, but I almost fell as a result. He looked at me more sternly, I was sure of it this time. 

He dropped me by the door, and I landed feet first. I felt something snap, and my knee gave way. Gordon slapped me from behind, making sure I didn't get spiked.

“Yah!” I exclaimed. He landed next to me, and gave me another also to the back of the head.

“What was that for?!” I shouted at him. He gestured wildly and angrily. He finished by pointing at the door with irritated gusto.

I stepped to the door, and swung it open. “See you at the end of this, I guess.” He nodded firmly, yet seemed somehow remorseful of this fact. He and I stepped through the door together. Honestly, I'm not sure what I was expecting on the other side, but I knew I wouldn't like it. Turns out, I didn't like it.


	14. Well, Fuck Me, Then

Why do I have to open doors? I mean, it’s just as simple not to open them. In this case, it would have meant ultimately dooming the universe, but would it really have been  _ that bad _ if all of creation was overtaken by a tyrannical megalomaniac?

I stepped through the door, and a pink fist pummeled the side of my head. Yup. Blood rushed to the scene, and Lena’s sonic fucking scream filled my ears. At least give me enough time to describe the fucking room, will you?

My head pounded, but I was able to take in this room. Asteroid-like platforms of stone and various sizes hovered over the void, and lightning flashed in the distance, sometimes deciding to take out an asteroid. My head dangled dangerously close to the end of the asteroid platform upon which we were situated.

I scrambled to my feet, but Lena decided to stamp on them. She screamed at me, and I decided not to object, given what had happened last time.

“Where the FUCK were you?!” she asked with a vengeance.

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t seen you  _ at ALL _ in this trial!”

“Is… did you  _ want  _ to?”

Her helmet peeled back, and she stared at me, angrily open-jawed. Honestly, I have no idea how she can convey emotion like that, but she did. “Shut up!” She pulled out her guardstaff, and a scythe emerged.

“Oh, fuck!” I ducked. Unlike I expected, she didn’t swing at me, but the asteroid instead. A piece of it flew off into the distance, and she screamed into the void. I swear I could see the asteroids move out of the way.

“ _ Never _ think I like you  _ again! _ ”

“Okay, okay! Just put that fucking thing away, will you?”

“ _ NO! _ ” The scythe turned into a gun, and she fired into the distance.

“Okay, quick question,” I tested my luck, “why are you not shooting at  _ me? _ ”

She pointed the gun at me. Fuck. I sidestepped, and she just fired blindly. 

“Quit it, you little shitlipped fuckboy,” she insisted.

“Is that a slur?” I asked.

“Fuck if I know,” she answered. Honestly, I had the same answer.

I stared down into the void, and tried to think of a way out. I really didn’t want to have to pull that Halfguard shit like before.

“I’m gonna throw you,” Lena announced. Oh, fuck.

“ _ Nope, _ ” I noped. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do anything, unless I was willing to fall into the endless abyss. Lena picked me up with two hands, (which were surprisingly strong,) and hoisted me over her head.

“Nononononononono!” I protested frantically, “putmedownputmedownputmedown pleeeeaaassseee!”

“Too late, fucksicle.” She heaved, and I went flying. Disobeying the laws of physics entirely, a lightning bolt struck me from beneath, and catapulted me up. I landed upside-down on an asteroid, and it hurt like hell.

“Thanks,” I wheezed. Some bullshit happened, and through fantastical coincidence, Lena was struck by lightning as well, and flew over to the asteroid, landing on her feet. Her legs were placed awkwardly on either side of my head.

“Um, uh, do you think you could, uh,” I stumbled, “stand… somewhere else? Maybe?” 

“Stand up, dickpounder,” she commanded. I decided not to argue, but I hit my head on her thighs on the way up. I almost thought she would crack my skull like a leg-nutcracker for that, but it elicited no reaction.

I scrambled to my feet, successfully this time, and hoped she wouldn’t throw me again. “Hey, do you think you can maybe, like,  _ not?! _ ”

“We’ll see, asschunk,” she answered. She held up her guardstaff, and formed some kind of launcher. She fired it, and a grappling hook shot from the end. The hook embedded itself on an asteroid, and Lena was pulled along it. She scaled the asteroid, and stood atop it.

“WHY DIDN’T YOU DO THAT BEFORE?!” I shout-asked.

“Because ideas take time to form, dick-cruncher,” she snapped. She fired the grappling hook again, this time at me.

“Not again!” I jumped out of the way.

“Grab on, fire-shitter,” she insulted me.

“I- I could’ve fucking done it myself! I have a guardstaff, too, you know!”

“Fuck you,” she insisted, “or I’m pulling out.”

I wanted to object, but there was really nothing to object to here. Fuck it, I guess. I knelt down to grab the pink chain, and it retracted. I went hurtling towards Lena at a speed I would rather not have. I landed mostly safely on the rock, but Lena fucking punched me in the face, because, why the fuck not, am I right?!

“Okay, what the actual FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!” I screamed confusedly.

“I like punching,” Lena reasoned, “your face just so happened to be within range.”

“My  _ dick _ was closer,” I said, “why not- no, wait, FUCK!”

Dick punch. Really, I shouldn’t be allowed to think creatively, or be permitted to problem solve. As I’ve very clearly been shown, neither of things ever lead to good things. Just dick punching.

I collapsed to the floor. At least she- no, wait a moment- rib kick. There we go. “Do YoU tHiNk YoU cOuLd MaYbE NoT?” I squeaked.

“NO!” 

Kick. A lightning bolt came down on the asteroid, narrowly missing my head. I scrambled to my feet (again), and managed to pull out my guardstaff. The gladius burned its way into existence, and I held it up in self-defense. “Pull that shit again,” I asserted myself, “and I’ll  _ Mortal Kombat _ this shit, okay?”

“What?” she looked and me with furious confusion. Really, I should just stop adding the “furious” to anything she does, it’s really just sort of implied at this point.

“Sword go slashy-slashy,” I elaborated.

Then, a thing went happen. The doors we entered through burst open, and winged Halfguard poured out. Screeches filled the air, and we readied ourselves.

Lena pulled out a machine gun, and started rapid-firing at them. Anything else, those bullets would’ve mowed down, but not the Halfguard. Those things are very strangely selective about what can hurt them. A couple fell down, yes, but most of them kept coming.

I turned my sword into a shotgun, and tried to shoot them down. I took out one, but, guess fucking what, that didn’t stop them. 

“We can’t stop them,” I reasoned, “we need to make our way to the other door!”

“FUCK YOU!” Lena decided. I wanted to lug her up to the door, but there wasn’t enough space magic in the world to make that happen. I could’ve just left her there to die, but something stopped me. Something brash and something brave, and, most importantly, something stupid that, in all likelihood, would be the precursive feeling to my untimely demise.

She blasted the Halfguards with ceaseless (guess what) fury, while the black bodies soared towards us. She screamed valiantly at them, willing to be the captain who went down with her ship.

In an act of sheer insanity, I told her, “Stand back.”

“Die in a hole, hot-head,” she told me back.

I pushed her aside, and she didn’t fight back (for some reason). The Halfguard were crawling towards us, and I decided I was going to try something. I held out my hand, and concentrated hard.

I closed my eyes, and pictured flame in my mind’s eye, filling the void. I opened my eyes, and fire was pouring from my hand. The flames grew and expanded, making a wall of flame. 

“Okay, alright! That’s a thing!” I was somewhat startled by this. Seeing a sheet of deadly fire emerge from your hand kinda does that.

The heads and hands of Halfguard warriors pierced the wall. They screeched at us, but quickly recoiled. Over the roar of the flames, I heard them screaming in anger at us.

“Okay, okay, uhhh,” I stuttered, “that’s holding ‘em! C’mon, we need to go!”

Lena kept firing at the wall.

“Okay, that is doing actually nothing,” I told her, “might I remind you that we have a door that we need to go through?! Universe saving and whatnot?!”

“EAT MY ASS!”

“Okay, well that’s another thing entirely,” I said, “now stop shooting the fucking fire wall and let’s get going!”

I grabbed her by the arm, and prepared for a pummelling. She just kept shooting the flames, and I tugged her along. I held out my guardstaff, and tried the grappling-hook thing. It latched onto the next asteroid, but the pull didn’t work too well. It pulled us off our platform, but we just sort of fell down.

Suspended by a thread of fire, we hung over the void, and Lena fired down into the nothing.

“YOU ARE ACCOMPLISHING NOTHING!” I shouted at her.

“IT’S CALLED ANGER MANAGEMENT!”

“IT’S CALLED SHOOTING INTO THE ABYSS! NOW GRAPPLE!” Begrudgingly, she switched her guardstaff to a grappling hook, and shot up, narrowly missing my asscheek.

“That’s the wrong direction!”

“Fuck you!” She zipped upwards, and so did I, except  _ I _ was going the right way.

“Try again!” I urged her.

“Jump the fuck off!” Lena urged me.

“Jump the fuck here, first!” 

She shot at the asteroid past me, and smacked me on the ass on her way by. I paused for a moment at this development, questioned what the fuck happened, and decided to just work with it. I shot towards her, and we kept going. I took a quick look behind us, and noticed the flames were dissipating. 

“Door is where?” I asked Lena.

“One more fucking rock away!” she replied.

I looked forwards, and there it was. Just within range, the wooden door was plopped down on a space rock. Finally, no bullshi-

Lena pushed me off the edge. Just fucking brilliant. I reacted as quickly as I could, and shot up a grapple, latching onto the edge of the rock. I saw Lena try to stamp on it, but it burned her foot, and she recoiled from it. Serves her right.

The grapple pulled me up, but I was struck by lightning from below as I ascended. “YOW!” I screamed. I swung around wildly on the chain, hanging on for dear life as shit became incredibly painful around me. “Shit, fuck, shit, fuck, shit, fuuuuck!”

Lena kept stamping, and kept slowly gaining height on the grapple. In my swinging, I noticed the fire wall had completely evaporated. “Oh, hell.” I decided that the grapple needed to go faster, and it heeded my command. I grasped the sides of the asteroid, and firmly instructed Lena, “Don’t fucking knock me off!”

She sneered down at me, but let me climb up. I clambered up onto the asteroid, and gestured to the door. “Before shit goes sideways,” I said, “let’s open this baby up.”

I tried to pull the door open, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Oh, fuck,” I remarked, “it’s not opening!” The Halfguard were gaining fast. With the flame wall gone, they flew freely through the air.

“Come on, come on!” I struggled with the handle. Shitty-ass wooden door, why couldn’t it just be one of those motion sensor ones from the stores?

Lena, completely done with my shit, decided to smack the door down.

“It’s a push door, assnuts.” She strode confidently through the portal.

“It’s a fu- none of the others were push doors!” Now I was the furious one. I stepped through the door, fuming.  _ The universe is fucking stupid _ , I thought to myself.  _ Guess I’ll just have to deal with it, I’m stuck here anyways _ .


	15. Meant To Be

The final door opened, and we were all standing there. Ian and Nick exited through one door, and Alex with Gordon through another. Ian looked particularly dishevelled, as Nick chuckled to himself. Gordon and Alex looked a little tired, but they were relatively fine-looking. Wait, no, not like that. Well, maybe like that, but- oh, fuck it.

The room was triangular in shape, all in plain gray. Three pillars along the walls were lit up, lighting the rest of the room. In the center, Solomon was idly pacing around another triangular pillar. His head perked up as we entered. He smiled cheerfully at us.

“You’ve made it!” he announced, “How did-”

“You were here this whole fucking time?!” Ian exclaimed. “Why couldn’t you have just let us in like this?”

“Well, you see,” Solomon tried to explain, “I designed this place so that only I could have easy access to this room, but that I couldn’t retrieve the Engine. You see, it’s because-”

Lena fired a round into the ceiling. “Shut the hell up, book-fucker.”

“Jeez!” I exclaimed, “Just for once, can you fucking  _ NOT?! _ ”

She pointed her gun at me, but Alex shot it out of existence with a rock pellet. “Don’t try it, pink.”

“Heh,” Nick chuckled, “ _ pink _ .”

“What- what’s so funny about that?” Ian complained, “It’s just a colour!”

“It’s pink, dude,” Nick failed to explain. He laughed some more, and keeled forwards. “Dude,” he said, muffled by the floor, “I’m so fuckin’ high.”

Gordon put his hand over his mouth, as if to mask a laugh. I could see him grinning profusely.

“Oh, fuck this all to hell,” I remarked. “Mr Solomon, how are we going to get our hands on this engine doohickey anyways?”

“Well, it’s fairly simple,” Solomon said, going to prop Nick back up, “all we- ungh!- need to do is- ack! Oh dear me, he is deceptively- Umph! -heavy!” He leant Nick against the wall, and resumed his speech. “We access the engine by simply gathering six Guardians around this pillar, and it should open just fine!”

We all hovered around our doors. Solomon looked at us, bewildered. “You- you have to  _ step towards _ the pillar. That’s- that’s how it works.”

“Oh,” said Ian, “I was just kinda… waiting for someone else to do it first.”

“Same,” Alex admitted.

“Pathetic,” Lena insulted us all, and stepped towards the center.

“You didn’t step forward eith-” I stopped myself before she had reason to disembowel me. I went behind her, and the other four of us stepped in as well. Solomon stepped behind me, gleefully anticipating any development.

The pillar began to rumble, and the panels extended outwards. They split in half, and each half went into the floor or ceiling. As they pulled away, they revealed a pyramidal object.

The pyramid floated in midair, and turned itself slowly. A crystal orb in the center of it sparkled and shone in the light of room. If you looked into the crystal, you couldn’t see anything beyond it. It was very strange in that way, as if it wasn’t part of the universe, it simply existed congruent to us.

Solomon gently made his way past us, and gingerly held the pyramid by its edges. “This, my dear friends,” he said, with a touch of fear and amazement in his voice, “is the Destiny Engine. It has the power to modify coincidence, and make anything happen. It even, somehow, can bring about the impossible, and defy the laws of our universe. Ladies, lords, and variations thereupon, this is the universe’s greatest miracle worker.”

Suddenly, there was thudding. Then, there were screeches. The sound of claws scraping at doors. And, last but not least, bickering.

“What is that?” Solomon asked us. “What’s making those noises?”

Gordon waved his arms around for a moment, and Mr Solomon somehow understood.

“Halfguard?” He was fearfully angry now. He replaced the Engine, which returned to floating. “How the hell could Halfguard have gotten in here?! The door only accepts Stones of non-Knowledge Guardians! Did- please, all of you, tell me honestly, did any of you fall unconscious?”

I raised my hand.

Solomon rushed me, and gripped me by the shoulders. “Did Chaos contact you?”

I nodded.

He stepped back, trembling with fear. “No, no, no! This is all wrong! We should’ve been able to do this without any resistance, and now-”

Crack! I heard the sound of something shattering the wooden door, and I spun around. Standing behind me was the black-armoured Xaneeta in her crown of Stones. Her shadowy swords were extended, and bore the remnants of the door upon their blades. She screamed a battle cry through her gashed cheeks, and shook the fractures of the door from her guardstaffs. Behind her was a fearsome troupe of Halfguards, teeth bared and backs hunched.

I heard another loud crack, and another door was broken, followed by another. The second door was destroyed by more Halfguard, but the last was destroyed by Chaos’ signature orange rapier. His cape flowed and rippled in a wind he had imagined for himself. He was also flanked by Halfguard.

“Hello, my brother!” Chaos introduced himself, “Oh, my, have you got me a gift?” He pointed to the Engine in the middle of the room.

“No, brother,” Solomon answered, “but I have brought you something quite untimely: your demise.” 

“Oh, clever, clever,” Chaos clapped sarcastically, “how  _ ever _ did you think up that one?”

“I’ll have you know,” Mr Solomon began, “that I-”

Xaneeta coughed loudly.

Chaos and Solomon both stared at her, displeased. “Do you mind?” Chaos said, “We’re quipping here!”

“And  _ I’m _ trying to complete our mission,” Xaneeta gruffly reminded him, “we have a universe to conquer, remember?”

“Oh, be quiet, won’t you?” Chaos dismissed. “We’re-”

“You’re stalling,” Xaneeta urged, “we didn’t come here and lose all of those Halfguard just so you could banter, idiot.” She stepped towards us, and we all drew our guardstaffs. She pointed a sword at me, and demanded, “Give us the engine, or we’ll kill you where you stand.”

“You’ll have to kill us first,” said Nick. Xaneeta stared at him inquisitively.

“Is he-” she began to ask.

“More or less,” I anticipated. “He generally leans to the ‘less’ side.” Unrelatedly, I swung my gladius, and our swords clashed. Xaneeta swung her other sword, and Lena parried it with a shotgun. Undoubtedly one of the stupidest combat techniques I have seen in my whole life, but okay.

We pushed back against her, but Halfguard rushed in to fight the others. Solomon split off to combat Chaos. Lena and I parried Xaneeta’s strikes, but she wore us down very quickly. Her blades managed to cut our guardstaffs into nothing, breaking them apart. Xaneeta’s swords were very quickly at our throats.

“Kneel,” she commanded us. I followed the motion of her blade as she lowered it to the ground. My knees hit the ground, but Lena was still standing. Xaneeta pushed the blade against her neck, and repeated, “ _ Kneel. _ ” Lena snapped at her. Xaneeta pushed the blade again, and blood seeped from her neck. “ _ Kneel. _ ”

I heard Lena very quickly fall to the floor. I looked to her, and saw blood running down her cheek. Clearly, she hadn’t been the most careful on her way down. “Fuck you, leatherhead.”

Xaneeta scoffed at her. “You call that an insult?”

Lena tensed up, and a scowl even more vicious than the one that normally adorned her face appeared. I heard four more thuds, one after the other. The battle quietened, and all that I could hear was Solomon and Chaos throwing insults and scraping swords.

“There’s a reason why Alpha never intrusted you with the Engines, Chaos,” Solomon said.

“What would that be, brother?” Chaos returned.

“Because you are simply too dense, your gravity would harm its mechanics,” Solomon finished.

“Oh yeah? Well, your mother is so fat, she would cause permanent dysfunction in the Engine!”

“We don’t have mothers! We were created from the void by Alpha!”

“That’s irrelevant.” Chaos swung his rapier fiercely, and struck Solomon’s spear away from him. “Victory, as it seems, is mine.”

“Oh, could you be any more cliche?” Solomon complained.

“I’m conquering the universe here, let me have my cheesiness. Halfguards, hold him.” Halfguard hands held Solomon, and forced him to the ground.

“Please, Chaos,” Solomon pleaded, “just for once, consider the consequences.”

“I have considered the consequences,” said Chaos, stepping to the Destiny Engine. “The consequences are such that the universe will become wholly entropic, and life within it will become strange and scarce, just enough that I will have people to terrorize. Tell me, brother, what makes that so wrong?”

“Life deserves to live!” Solomon argued, “If you do not have respect for it, then you are no better than the Banished One.”

“Of course I’m not,” Chaos parried, “the Banished One, as you like to call them, is impossible to surpass. I am doing their good work.”

“They were banished for a reason, brother!”

Chaos looked back at Mr Solomon for a brief moment. “Logic can be flawed. Punishments can be unjust. Rules can be cast aside. Chaos, you know, never changes.” He ripped the Engine from the pillar, and looked at it greedily. He laughed maniacally, and swept his cape with equal dramaticism. “Come, minions! We have a receptacle to fill.”

Chaos stepped behind me, and left through the door, accompanied by an entourage of Halfguard. Xaneeta pulled back, and Lena sprung up at her. Almost without thinking, Xaneeta sliced a chunk from Lena’s arm, and Lena fell to the floor, screaming in pain.

“Remember that,  _ girl _ ,” Xaneeta told her. She walked backwards out of the door, and rushed after them.

“Don’t worry,” Xaneeta said to me, “we’ll be back for the rest of you.”

“Come along, Xaneeta!” Chaos called for her. 

She muttered something under her breath, and walked out. I went to help Lena, but she swatted me away. “I can deal with this myself!” she insisted. She clutched the wound, just repeating “Fuck!” at it, quietly.

“Aren’t we going to follow them?” Ian suggested.

“No,” Solomon answered resignedly, “they will quickly escape via shadow portal. Right now, we need to do something about Lena’s arm.” Solomon walked quickly over to us. A slab of flesh about the size of a steak lay bloodied on the floor.

“Lena, listen to me very carefully,” he said calmly, “this is an easy fix, but you will have to follow my instructions. Is that alright?”

“Fuck you!” she screamed.

“You could at least vary your insults,” Solomon said, “now, what you need to do is imagine your armour filling out the space that was… eurgh, cut off.” He looked a bit sick.

Lena calmed down as much as she could, and, sure enough, pink armour began to cover the wound. Her breathing became normal, and she sat up.

“Shit, that hurt.” She swung her body, and slugged me in the shoulder with the fixed-up arm.

“OW!”

“It works,” she announced. 

We all stood up, and thought for a moment.

“So, Mr Solomon,” Alex asked respectfully, “what do we do now?”

“We do have some time left,” Mr Solomon answered, “they will need the receptacle to be directly parallel to Dark Omega’s Core amalgam, but that process might take days. In the meantime, I think we should go back to training. They can only put it in to operate it when it is in such a position. As well, I have a few new… tools for you.”

Oh boy, here we go.


	16. I Hope That Wasn't Important

Mr Solomon walked up to the door, and swiped the air. The corridor that was there before slid quickly out of the way, and opened into some kind of warehouse. “Follow me,” he encouraged us. He swept into the elongated, grey-white warehouse, and we trailed behind him. The ceiling was higher than the school above it, and the walls were piled high with silvery objects that looked very much like-

“Flying saucers?” Ian questioned. “Is this- was all that alien shit in the past? Wa- was that all you?”

“Variably,” Solomon answered cryptically.

“So- so there are aliens out there, yeah?” Ian continued to pester him.

“We are the aliens, dickhead,” I reminded him.

“Well that hardly counts,” Ian said, “we still look human.  _ Star Trek _ was bad enough about human-aliens, I don’t need real life to be that bullshit, too.”

“Oho,” Solomon chuckled, “just wait until you hear what gravitons do.”

“Wait, the what?”

“Oh, nothing,” Solomon dismissed, “Lena, come here please.” He knelt down, and pressed his hands against the floor. The floor slid open in a neat pentagon shape, and a pentagonal box floated up from it. It was much like a lunchbox, except somehow strangely space-age.

Lena sat down beside him, and Solomon opened the space-lunchbox. Inside were some odd-looking medical supplies, but I recognized a strip of gauze. “I’m going to have to ask you to remove your armour for this.”

Lena obliged, and her pink t-shirt became visible. Unfortunately, blood started to spurt violently from her upper right arm. Solomon held up the gauze, and whipped it at Lena’s arm. The gauze wrapped tightly around the wound, only letting a little blood seep through, and Mr Solomon quickly tied it up. I noticed that the wound had made her upper arm look unnaturally flat. 

“What is that?” Ian asked, “Is it some kind of magic bandage?”

“No,” Solomon answered flatly, “I’m just very good with this technique.”

“Man,” Ian said disappointedly, “the future fucking sucks.”

“Hehe,” Nick laughed to himself, “ _ sucks _ .”

“Alright,” I said, “are we going to do something about Weedy McSmoke over there or are we just kind of stuck with him now?”

“Yes,” Alex joked. “Well, to be fair, it wouldn’t be great to let that Dark Omega fellow have another Stone on his side.”

“True,” Solomon confirmed, “I do wish you would contribute a bit more, Nick. Your elemental power could prove use-”

Nick lit a cigarette. “My what?” 

Alex slapped the cigarette out of his hand. “Please don’t.”

Nick took another cigarette out, and Alex slapped it away again. They repeated this process about a dozen more times, until Alex decided just to take the whole pack away from him. She tossed it in the air, and shot it to pieces with her guardstaff.

“Hey!” Nick complained, “You bitch!”

Alex scowled down at him, and punched him squarely in the jaw, sending him soaring across the room. “Bitch.”

“Please keep all bloodshed to a minimum,” Solomon requested.

“I will, sir!” Alex agreed. Under her breath, she asked Ian, “Is it still bloodshed if the bleeding is internal?”

Ian shrugged. “As long as nothing pops out of him, you’re good.”

“Can we please  _ not _ eviscerate our teammates?” I questioned them, “As much as I hate him, it would be an inconvenience to clean him up.”

“Thanks, man,” Nick gave a thumbs-up. Flashing a jackass smile, I flipped him off.

The flap of wings indicated movement from Gordon. I moved my head towards the sound, and saw he had landed on one of the saucers.

Solomon heard it too, and his head snapped towards Gordon. “Please get down from there! You may break something!”

Gordon shook his head, and perched more solidly on the saucer. He made some movements with his hands, and sat back on it again.

“What did he say? I couldn’t see,” Mr Solomon admitted.

“He asked why,” Alex explained, “like, if they’re space ships, then why would he be able to break them? They should be able to sustain more than a teenager sitting on them.”

“He, specifically,” Solomon said, “could disturb the electronics of it. Faster than light travel is very finicky and very delica-”

The ship Gordon was sitting on started to smoke, and spark violently. Gordon flew quickly away from it, hovering in midair.

“Oh, hell!” Solomon cried, “That’ll take  _ weeks _ to repair!”

“If we have that long,” Ian added.

“Dude,” Alex interjected, “chill.” 

Ian shrugged. “The inevitability of death gives my life direction for once.”

“Okay, we’ve got Gerard fucking Way over there,” I said, “Solomon, can you give the rest of us some direction here?”

“Well, I’ll need to clean up that mess,” Mr Solomon indicated the damaged saucer, now producing plumes of gray smoke, “but after that, I will teach you how to operate these. Then, I will teach you a bit more about your innate elemental skills, each of you.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said, “I think I did something with that earlier.”

“Well, then,” Solomon said cheerfully, “your teaching should be expedited.”

I had a quiet little celebration, and Solomon went off to patch up the saucer. “Ajay, I believe your skills could be useful in this situation.” Solomon waved his hand at the rack of saucers, and the smoking one descended to the ground. “Come with me.”

An opening appeared in the saucer, and we entered it. The insides of it were very simple, with a screen above a console opposite the entrance, and a eight or so seats lining the walls. The inside was all plain white, but now, things were sparking and fuming. Some things were even on fire.

“Ajay,” Solomon began, “if you could, would you please take care of the fires.”

I opened my hands, and reflexively the flames came towards me. With my armour on, I could still feel the heat of it. Like before, it didn’t hurt, but it was horribly unnerving to see plumes of fire rushing towards me.

Solomon began to putter with the console. He pressed buttons rapidly and madly, then stared at it, evidently stumped. “Where in the world did I put the off button?”

I took a sweep of the room, and saw a very classic-looking computer off button, the one that looked like a circle with a line through the top, under the console. I pointed towards it, and said, “Is that it?”

Solomon peered at it furiously, and said, “So that’s where it is. I swear, these absurd contraptions move when I’m not looking at them.” He pressed the button firmly, and the sparks slowed, then stopped. The screen shut down, and the saucer became dark.

“Now that that’s done with,” Mr Solomon said, “I’ll be needing to teach you all how to operate them.” He stepped back out of the saucer, and directed us all to another one, closer to the floor. He repeated the process of opening it.

Gordon waited at the door, and tapped his foot.

“Uh, Mr Solomon?” Ian asked.

“Hm?”

“What about Gordon? Shouldn’t he get to learn how to do this?”

“Oh, yes,” Solomon stammered, “Gordon, I’ll have to ask you to remove your armour. You should be fine otherwise.”

Gordon’s blue armour peeled back, and he stepped inside. Solomon stood in front of the console, and we all took our seats. Solomon waved at the screen, and a view of the warehouse appeared on it.

“This vehicle, much like your guardstaffs,” he explained, “functions more on the feelings of the user than concrete instructions.”

“Well, fuck that noise,” Ian said under his breath.

Solomon glared at him for a quick second, and returned to his teaching. “If you want it to go backwards-” the ship slid backwards into the air, now suspended over nothing, “it will heed you. No fiddling with unresponsive controls.”

Ian, in response to the movement, slid out of his seat. “FUck!” he cried, as he hit the floor. “Warn a guy!”

“Get good, pissbaby,” Lena insulted him. Ian stared up at her angrily, and went back to his seat.

“If any of you would like to try,” Solomon offered, “you’re welcome to step up.”

Alex stood up first. Solomon stepped aside, and Alex stood at the control panel. She stuck out her hands, and made a motion like she was gripping something, like a control stick. She pushed the imaginary stick forward, and the ship shuddered in the proper direction. 

“Alright,” she remarked, “seems easy enough.” She flew the ship deeper into the hangar, up a little, then carefully flew it back to its resting spot.

She stepped away, and motioned for Ian to take the helm. He gulped hard, and walked shakily to the front. He held up both his hands, positioning them like he was at a keyboard. He pressed a finger down, and the ship flew back again. If another one of us did that exact same shit, I would flip the fuck out.

He moved us around a bit, threatening to slide around on the sleek floor. The ship wobbled a bit more than it should've, but he seemed somewhat competent with the controls.

Nick tried it next, shooting us up and down in the air to his whim. His jackass, dumb as fuck whim. He controlled it with what seemed like an invisible Wii remote, waggling it up and down madly.

“Sweet,” he remarked, “can it shoot things?”

“There are weapons systems,” Mr Solomon said, rattled, “but I don't think I should let you at those just yet.”

Then, Gordon stood up, and, in a strange twist, didn't make any motions to control the ship. It moved by his thought, and he controlled it quite well, managing to actually spin it around. He turned and smiled at us when his turn was over, and Alex gave him a thumbs-up.

I stepped forward, and went up to the front. I stuck my hands out, getting a mental image of an Xbox controller ready, but, of fucking course, Lena punched me out of the way. I fell to the floor, as she took the helm.

The ship plummeted to the ground, and various violent cracks could be heard. She shouted with vigorous anger, and we rocketed upwards. We all got our heads smacked on the way up, especially Ian, but Lena was stationary. 

In a last-ditch effort, I grabbed Lena’s leg, and pulled it out from under her. She fell on her bad arm, and blood spurted from the bandage. I clambered to my feet, and declared, “Maybe we should not let Lena do things.”

“Fuck you,” she murmured. 


	17. Fraternizing with the Enemy

I took some extra time to try out the flying saucer, and decided it was… meh. I’m always surprised when magic space stuff is underwhelming, like, you would expect being able to control a spaceship with your mind to be cool, right? Nope. Absolutely nothing. I guess that it might have something to do with the fact that the only reason I know of it is because an evil warlord is threatening to destroy the universe and everything I love and hold dear. Nah, that’s stupid.

I stepped out of the flying saucer, and Solomon clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Ajay,” he said, “I think you will do well.”

“Why do you bring that up?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted, “I think it is just something I needed to say. I just needed to know you knew it.”

“Thanks,” I said, “I just hope that doing well’s gonna be good enough.”

“I am sure it will be,” he reassured me. “Now, I think your friends are waiting for you.” He led me to the other end of the hangar, where an opening… uh, opened, and lead us back into the gym.

“Wow!” I exclaimed, “I hate this place!” Not even seeing it in shreds could remove the negative feelings I had for this place. It helped, but it was still a gym. No matter how athletic I was, something about this place just radiated suck. 

I walked in, and everyone was in their own unique state of absurdity; Nick was flat on his back, chewing something I didn’t care to identify, Alex was sitting quietly on the bench, flipping through different settings on her guardstaff and holding Lena’s hand, as the pink executioner herself screamed at a wall. Ian, of course, was face first on the floor. He poked his head up as I came in, and said, “Oh hey, you’re just in time.”

“Just in time for what?” I asked.

“For updog.”

“Are you serious?”

He stared at me, grinning stupidly, “Don’t you know what updog is?”

I sighed hard. “Yes. Yes I do, in fact, know what updog is. I also know, for a fact, that faces hurt if you kick them, and yours seems perfectly positioned.”

He just grinned bigger and dumber. “Thanks, I know.”

“Hey, dude,” Alex greeted me. I waved back.

“So, we’re here to do training, yeah?” I asked Mr Solomon.

“I’m not sure that was a proper sentence,” he chided, “but, as I understand your sentiment, yes. I would advise you all to pair off, and continue to spar with each other. Choose your partners now, but I would also advise you to switch off at some point. If you only learn to fight against one person, you’ll never grow as a fighter.”

Ian stood up and grasped my hand firmly. “Wanna be partners?”

“Not really,” I said.

“Too bad,” he insisted, dragging me off to the other side of the gym. He whipped out his scimitar, and I reluctantly pulled out my gladius. Nope, no innuendos here. I struck first, and he parried sloppily. 

I quickly slapped the sword away from him, and he groaned miserably. “I thought you wanted to be my partner,” I complained back at him.

“Yes,” he said, “but I didn’t want you to be better than me at it.” I smirked at him, as he went to pick his sword back up.

“Again,” I said, attack first again. This time, he caught my blade in the curve of his, turning it backwards. He pushed down on it, and it fell out of my hands this time. He thrust forward, the tip of his blade at my throat.

I looked for a way out, and ducked out of the way, trying to grab my sword, but Ian reformed his guardstaff around my throat, forming a chained manacle.

He whipped the chain to his left, putting me right in front of him.

“Not bad,” I complimented him, “but I'm kind of choking here.”

“Oh, sorry,” he said, dissipating the manacle. “You alright?”

“Yeah, I'm good,” I told him,  stroking my neck, “that's an interesting technique. Probably hard to use, but definitely cool.”

Ian opened his mouth, but, strangely, the a doorbell sounded. He clasped his mouth in surprise. “What the fuck was that?”

I snickered at his surprise. “That was the school doorbell, dumbass. Maybe we should check it out, I don't know why anyone would be here now. Could be some space shit.”

“Observant,” he groaned, “but shouldn't we tell Mr Solomon first?”

“I think we'll be fine,” I said confidently, “we should probably be enough to face whatever's there. Maybe one of the vice principals forgot they had the day off.”

“Okay,” he said hesitantly, “but I'm not going to be the first to die of space death.”

“'Die of death’?” I prodded him.

“Shut the fuck your face,” he said jokingly. I patted him on the shoulder, and walked past him to the door. I shouted “We got the door,” and we went on our way.

  
  
  


“Well, fuckles,” Ian announced. We were standing at the front door of the school, which were, thankfully, locked, and barring entry to one Xaneeta von Doom.

She was tapping on the door lustrelessly, her head laying on the glass door. “Hey, let me in, jackasses!”

“Do we let her in?” Ian asked me, “I mean, she's just kinda standing there, pathetically.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I responded loudly, “She’s the bad guy!”

“I can hear you, you know,” Xaneeta said through the door.

“Not now, sweetie, mommy and daddy are talking,” Ian instructed her.

“Don't call us that,” I grumbled.

“I’ll save that for later, then,” he added. He turned to Xaneeta,and asked her, “What're you here for?”

“Murder and brutality,” she answered half-heartedly. “Chaos wants both of your Stones. Not gonna lie, I don't really care about any of this. Can I just say I fought you but was defeated? It'd make things a lot easier for all of us.”

Ian and I exchanged glances, and he shrugged at me. “Seems reasonable enough,” he reasoned. 

I turned to Xaneeta, and shrugged. “Go ahead,” I told her.

“Oh, hold on,” Ian said, “do you need anything? Like a drink or a sandwich? Pizza? It's probably cold, but it's there.”

I punched him the shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I am being hospitable,” he said, “maybe you’d like to do it now and again. Now,” he turned to Xaneeta again, “juice?”

  
  
  


“We are never telling anyone about this,” I said to Ian, who was very politely slipping coins into a vending machine. He called up a can of orange juice, and the machine made an effort to churn it out. The juice got caught on its way down.

“Son of a bitch,” he swore at the juice, “it always does this.”

“Then why are you using it?”

“Because I am a hopeful idiot,” he proclaimed, shaking around the vending machine. “Dammit, agh, it's not coming.”

“We have space swords for this,” I reminded him, “we really don't need to do this.”

“Well,” he grunted, shifting the machine, “it's not the Jedi way.”

“First of all, it most definitely  _ is  _ the Jedi way, second, THIS ISN'T FUCKING  _ STAR WARS! _ ”

He held up a finger in a “shush” motion. 

“Enough of this,” I said. I ignited my gladius, and dug it into the vending machine. Big surprise, it caught fire. Ian let out a startled scream, as the machine started to explode. “What the fuck?!”

“SHUT UP!” I shouted back. I pulled the fire up and away, and Ian scrounged the slightly scorched orange juice can from the wreckage. I raised a questioning eyebrow, and he shrugged back at me.

We went into the cafeteria, where, against my wishes, Xaneeta was waiting. She looked around the cafeteria curiously, quietly awaiting her juice. This was incredibly and undeniably stupid. Ian slid into the seat opposite Xaneeta, and slid her the juice.

“It’s a little burnt,” he said, “but it’s really the thought that counts, I think.”

She looked up at him with some small disappointment. He grimaced, and went up to salvage another juice can. He returned, this time with a straw, too. He slid back down, and gave her the juice and straw. He took the burnt one for himself.

He slowly popped it open, demonstrating the technique to Xaneeta. Xaneeta pulled at the tab on the can, and pulled it off by accident. “Oops,” she remarked.

“It’s okay,” Ian said, “just take the lil’ tab, and just sort of jab it in there, carve it out and whatnot.”

Xaneeta slammed the tab into the top, and orange juice seeped out of the gash. “Like that?”

“Eh, close,” Ian said, making a see-saw motion with his hand. “Now you gotta put it at angle, then dig it out.”

Xaneeta maneuvered the tab around, creating a larger opening with it. She looked at Ian hopefully.

“There you are!” he congratulated her, “Now, just put it to your lips, and take a sip.”

Xaneeta held the juice can up to her lips, and made a loud sucking noise. The gaping holes in her cheeks let out a spray of juice. She looked around, embarrassed.

“It’s fine,” Ian said, stifling a laugh, “just use the straw instead. Less messy that way.”

She slipped the straw in upside-down, and put it through her cheek. Some juice made its way up the straw, and spilled out the other side. Xaneeta looked a little embarrassed at this.

“No, no, not like that,” Ian said grimacing, “in your mouth.” She readjusted the straw, and used it properly now. Her eyes went wide as she drank from the straw. She looked around wildly as the new taste filled- yeah, there’s no way not to describe this weird. I’m stretching for normal words as it is.

She pushed it back forcefully. “What the hell was that?”

Ian chuckled. “It’s orange juice, it’s stuff we squeezed from a fruit.”

“That seems almost cruel to the poor fruit,” she said, “do you at least kill it first?”

“It’s fruit, dimwit,” I snapped. “Again, why did we let her in?!”

Ian shrugged. “She said she didn’t want to kill us. We might as well. It couldn’t hurt.” He looked back at her, and asked, “So, what’s your name again? I don’t think I caught it.”

“Xaneeta,” she answered, “but I’m not sure if I really like it. It never feels like it’s  _ my _ name.”

“Weird,” Ian said, “sometimes I get that too, but I think that’s just the dissociation.”

“The what?” Not-Xaneeta asked.

“Nothin’,” Ian dismissed, “but it might have something to do with-”

“Well,” I interrupted, “I think it’s time for you to go. Goodbye, have fun destroying the universe.”

I began to tug her towards the door, but Ian stood up to stop me.

“Oi!” Ian exclaimed, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Removing the enemy from the premises,” I retorted, “what’s it look like?!”

“You can’t just do that, man!”

“No,” Xaneeta agreed, “I should be going. Chaos will be wondering where I went. I’ll need to rough myself up a bit, first.” With that, she ran headfirst into a wall. Her crown became embedded in the stone, but she pulled it back out with incredible force, taking a couple chunks with her. “This should be good,” she said, rubbing her forehead, “do you mind if I take the juice with me?”

“Oh, su- sure, sure,” Ian stuttered, a little shaken. “Just saying maybe don’t ram your head into things in the future, it’s not a great idea. Trust me, I know.”

“Hey maybe can you not,” I said to him.

He shrugged back at me. “Safe travels!” He said to her, as she vanished through a shadowy portal.

I slammed my hand to my face. “Why did that happen. Why the hell did you let the most powerful villain we’ve seen in, and offer her a fucking can of orange juice?”

Like usual, he shrugged. “Just felt like it. No harm, no foul.”

“Yeah, we’re going back to the gym.”

“And not telling Mr Solomon about it?” he asked.

“And not telling Mr Solomon about it.” I answered.


	18. Ready For It

It had been five days of training, struggling, and sleeping on desks, but we finally felt ready. Good thing, too, because, as Solomon repeated furiously, “Dark Omega’s amalgam planet will be over the warp exaggerator any time now.”

Ian and I, alternatingly, would always reply “That sounds made up.” And Solomon, of course, would always shout back, “IT’S NOT! I WROTE THE MATHS FOR IT!”

We gathered at the front door, fully armoured, guardstaffs in hand, and were making one final check before we left. “Does everyone have everything they need? Snacks? Cellulars?”

“Hold on,” Ian said somberly, “I need to… to call my mom.” He stepped out of the room for a few minutes, and came back teary-eyed. “I’m good,” he sniffed. “Just wanted to call in case… in case we… oh, hell.” He began to sob.

Alex went over to comfort him, and hugged him hard. “Come on, man,” she encouraged, “we’re gonna do it, we’re gonna do  _ great! _ ”

Ian wiped a tear from his eye. “Yeah, yeah, I’m just… I’m just worried.” He hugged back harder. Alex looked at me with a grimace, and indicated with furious facial movements to help her out.

I staggered over to him, and patted him weakly on the shoulder. “There… there.” Alex rolled her eyes at me and I stepped away.

“Erm,” Solomon interrupted, “do we need a moment?”

“No, no,” Ian said, teary-eyed, “I’m- I’m fine. Let’s go.”

We pushed out the front doors, ready for battle. No, wait… oh, hell. No battle. Just walking. Hours and hours of fucking walking, feat. Ian Not Shutting The Hell Up. I counted 31 complaints every five minutes. I was seriously considering letting the evil overlord just come and fucking annihilate us.

“How much longer? I need a metric, here,” Ian moaned.

I was twitching furiously. Now I know how Lena must feel all the time. Nick pushed a white, paper cylinder my way. “Smoke?” he asked me.

“Sword?” I offered back.

“Sure,” he said, only half-aware, and reached for my guardstaff. I slapped his hand away, and held the hilt up to his forehead, and threatened, “Lobotomy?”

For the first time in his life, his eyes widened. “Woah, chill, man. What the hell’s your deal?”

“Please no impromptu eviscerations, back there, please,” Solomon requested from the front of the pack. “Any improper surgeries could very well be detrimental, nevermind who the recipient is.”

I pulled the guardstaff back, very close to whipping it back out again. “Lena,” I requested of the pink avenger, “could you punch him please?”

She slugged me in the face with her bad arm, which evidently still had enough power behind it to crack a tooth from my head.

I spat the tooth out, and, bloody-mouthed, spat at her, “I said punch  _ him _ you fucking dullard!”

“You didn’t specify which him,” she said back, with the most reserved anger she had ever shown. “I don’t really pay attention to details.”

“Damn son,” Alex prodded us from behind, “get guuuuuuuuuud!”

“Hey maybe  _ don’t _ ,” I snapped at her.

“Can we please all just be  _ civil _ for one bloody minute?!” Solomon commanded. “NO!” we all replied.

He slumped his shoulders. “This is the thanks I get for starting all life on this rancorous planet, is it?”

“Yes,” Ian spoke up. He looked around at us, expecting some kind of agreement. “Nobody? Am I alone? Am I just supposed to carry this joke on my own shoulders? Alright, then.”

“Okay, we’re only half an hour from the Mountain Citadel,” Solomon said, exhaustedly, “can we please just give it a rest?”

“If we get a rest,” Ian groaned.

“There’s a Tim’s just over there,” Alex pointed out, “maybe we could-”

“SHUSH!” Solomon turned to shout at us.

I turned the disembodied tooth around in my hand, as I felt for the gap it had left. Lena, the fucking asshole, had knocked out a canine tooth. “That's gonna look like hell,” I remarked.

“Looks fine to me,” Ian said, staring me in the mouth.

“Thanks,” I said hesitantly. I could taste the blood swelling from it. It was always a strangely satisfying taste, in some perverse way. It told me I was alive, but that I was still fallible. 

I looked up ahead of us, and saw a large mountain, ringed by a small, run-down town. The kind of town you only ever see on road trips, stocked with unkempt houses. And probably a Wal-Mart. Maybe an abandoned Target, as a sign of some past affluence. The mountain was topped with strange industrial and mechanical protrusions, some bat-like apparitions encircling the air about the peak.

“Halfguards,” I murmured to myself as I saw the creatures fly. I heard Solomon call for us, and my eyes focused on that which was before me. 

A Circle K gas station, with a trio of pumps holding up the hefty metal ceiling. The lights in the store were on, but it was empty. I figured the place must've been evacuated when Chaos’ forces invaded.

We pushed past the doors, and saw that the shelves were pushed over. Bags of chips were crushed, open on the floor, and soda spilled lazily from their bottles.

True to form, Ian picked up a bag of chips from the floor and started grabbing handfuls. 

“I- what the hell are you doing?” I asked him.

“Nobody else wanted 'em,” he reasoned, “I might as well.” He shoved another handful into his face, then coughed it back up. “Okay, oh fuck, little too much, there. Smaller bites. Oh, jeez.”

I rolled my eyes, but I heard more crunching. I turned around to scold Ian again, but this time it was Gordon. I gestured angrily at him, and he shrugged back. Is that the only thing people do around here? Shrug? I shrugged it off, (fuck,) and asked Solomon, “What are we here for?”

“Mostly,” he said, “for a rest. There’s food here, no matter how horrible it is. Also, I very desperately need to use the restroom. I regret limiting myself to a human form.” He swept away to the bathrooms, and slammed the door behind him.

I poked around the Circle K, and found some floor hotdogs, a sliced up pack of batteries, and-

“Yagh!” I screamed, as the Halfguard head rolled into my path. Its mouth opened and closed like it was supposed to be screaming, but it just sort of wiggled its jaw. I picked it up, and turned it around it my hands. 

Now that I could see it close-up, I noted that the cheeks had been shredded, so that they weren’t restricted by the flesh. Behind the jagged metal teeth, bloodied human ones lay. Some of them were ripped out, probably from, please hurt me for saying this, biting of more than the Halfguard could chew.

The armour had sealed off at the neck, so that nothing could, urgh, fall out. It continued to snap at me, but I ignored it. Everyone gathered around me and it.

“Kill it,” Lena insisted, strangely deadpan, “it’s the only way.”

“Or you could maybe not?” Ian offered instead.

“I’d say put it back where you found it,” Alex suggested. Gordon poked it tentatively, but he quickly pulled his finger back when it was nearly decapitated. 

Solomon came out of the bathroom, and enquired of us, “Any revelations while I was gone?”

Ian snickered, and informed Solomon, “We got… *snicker*...  _ ahead _ of the bad guys.”

We all groaned in pain. I think even the head was disappointed in him. Ian’s massive, shit-eating grin shone across the room. I put the head on one of the few upright shelves. It sat there pissfully for a moment, then Lena broke the silence. 

“Fuck you, you fucking face.” She shoved her dagger-shaped guardstaff through its eye, and blood squirted from it, but then it went still.

“Wow, okay,” Ian said, “thanks for that. Never gonna fucking un-see that shit.”

“Cork it, pissbaby,” she commanded, pulling the dagger back out. The black armour on the head peeled back as the head died. A pale face, with dainty features and dark hair emerged. A sad eye with a dark irises, almost synonymous with the pupil remained to stare painfully. They might’ve been beautiful, if they hadn’t had been marred by the bloodied eye and torn cheeks.

“Oh, oh goodness,” Solomon said, gingerly stroking the head with the back of his hand. He knelt down, so that they were at eye level. “Oh, my poor child, what did they do to you?” He sounded like he was on the verge of tears.

“Did you know them?” Alex asked.

“Yes,” Solomon answered, choking back a sob, “she was the last Guardian of Ice, Bianca. she was… she was Julienne’s mother.”

I had completely forgotten about Julienne. Hearing her name now made me wonder how she was doing. If Chaos and Dark Omega wanted all of the Elemental Stones, I wanted to know if she was okay after all of this.

Solomon gently closed the other eyelid, and stroked her hair. “It’s all alright now, child. You’re in a better place, I’m sure.” He took off the top of his suit, and wrapped the head in it. He pulled it close to his chest, and held it tight. Tears fell gently from his cheeks, and wetted the suit. “I’m going outside to bury her. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  
  
  


Nearly an hour had passed by the time he was done. It was nearly sundown. “I needed to… to make a memorial,” he explained. “I couldn’t just let her lay in the dirt like that.”

“It’s fine,” Alex consoled him, “I know it can be hard, when you lose someone. My mom- well, the one I  _ thought _ was my birth mother, died a few years ago. It really, sucks I kno-”

“Blah blah blah,” Lena pushed in, “dead people make you sad, we get it. Bunch of fucking marigold-ass pansies.”

“You talking weeds, my man?” Nick interjected.

“Oh, hell in a handbasket,” I declared, “we are getting nowhere with any of this.”

“Ajay is correct,” Solomon declared, sniffing,  “if we wish to preserve our lives and to right this broken world, we must make haste to the mountaintop, and bring steel-wrought havoc upon those bloodless evildoers!”

“Somebody's pissed,” Ian observed, “and surprisingly Shakespearean.”

“Yes,” I chided, “thank you for that beautiful insight.”

“If there are no objections,” Solomon said, “then we will head out for the warp exaggerator outpost.”

“Actually,” Ian smartassed, “I think its pronounced 'evil lair’.”

“Hey,” Lena said, “fuck you.”

“It's what I do,” he said, finger-gunning.


	19. A Threat Fulfilled

We meandered through the town at a somewhat rapid pace. Most houses or building were in some shade of disrepair, with windows slashed out or doors ripped from their stead. I didn’t care to investigate, but I thought I could see limbs and other dismembered parts scattered around. I could tell some people tried, and failed, to resist Chaos’ invasion.

“This looks… sucky,” Ian remarked.

“We fucking noticed, shitface,” Lena snapped.

Gordon waved his hands at Solomon, pointed at Lena with some exasperation, then to the rest of us, in quite a huff.

“Yeah, nobody knows what that means,” I told him.

Gordon stared at me with wild eyes, and urged Solomon to do something. Solomon groaned at him, and signed something back. Gordon flipped him off. 

“That’s fair,” Alex agreed. We were silent for a minute, then Nick broke the silence with the sound of him flicking on a lighter, and lighting a blunt.

“I need some air, man,” Nick commented.

“We’re outside, fuckass,” Lena retorted, “use your fucking lungs. Maybe you need me to shove some fucking shitty-ass air down your fucking throat.”

“I’m down for that,” he slurred.

“Can you all just be quiet!” Solomon exclaimed, “We are almost there! Just calm down, and we can all- oh, words have failed! Let’s just make our way to the exaggerator, and get to smashing things.”

“Sounds like fun,” Alex contributed, “I like smashing. Feels nice. Except when you hit yourself or something, that doesn’t feel as nice.”

We arrived at the base of the mountain, and quickly realized-

“There's no stairs,” Ian moaned, “of course there aren't any stairs. Why would there be stairs, even? I mean, it's not like people want to have their feet on solid ground when they're going up a fucking mile-high ROCK!”

“Dude,” I said to him, “shut the fuck up.” He, very sincerely, stuck his tongue out at me.

Solomon groaned in agreement with Ian. “Argh, he’s right. There's not enough time for us to walk all the way up there, especially if we have to actually  _ scale _ the mountain. We could use elemental constructs, but that would likely be too draining or unstable, and we’d never be able to-”

The sound of giant wings flapping filled the air. Gordon hovered above us on his blue, metal wings. He did something with his hands, and Solomon understood. 

“Of course,” Solomon realized, “we can fly you up there! It may take some time, but it should be feasible given the time constraints.”

Gordon nodded in agreement, and gave a thumbs up. He extended his hand to Alex, and she stepped forward. Gordon lowered himself in the air, and grabbed Alex under her arms. 

“Wish me luck!” she exclaimed, as Gordon carried her off the ground and soared away to a plateau on the side of the mountain. He dropped her gently, and came back for another go. He spread his arms, asking for any takers. Nick stepped forward, dropping his blunt and stepping on it, accidentally. I rolled my eyes at him. Gordon grabbed him like he had grabbed Alex, and whisked him away, up the mountain. 

Again, and again, Gordon came back for the rest of us. Solomon, then Lena, then Ian, and, finally, me. It was surreal, being carried up a mountain by a blue teenager from space. Oh, and the mountain had a nice view, whatever. My feet hit the plateau, with a weight I forgot I had. I stumbled, but got my balance.

“Alrighty, then,” Solomon declared, “let’s get climbing. We haven’t long to waste!”

We clamored up the steep mountain slope, and crawled on top of a grated platform put there by the Halfguard. And you could tell it was made by the Halfguard, too; it was strangely twisted, and crudely put together by half-functioning hands. The metal grates had claw marks on them, too, and some spatterings of blood were even visible, as if the Halfguard had been quarreling amongst themselves.

We crept along the platform, careful not to piss off any Halfguard that might be standing further down the path. We turned a sharp corner, and a single Halfguard was barring a door. The bestial creature turned at us, fangs and clawed fingers bared, and screeched. Lena stepped forward, and fired a shotgun round down its throat. 

“Surprise, motherfucker,” she taunted it. The Halfguard reeled from this, but recovered. Lena, determined to fuck with it, shifted her gun into some strange shape.

“How about this one, fucknuggets?” She fired the strange weapon, and a dagger was propelled from the end. It speared the Halfguard through the neck, with a sickening crunching sound. “Knifegun, bitch.”

We all shrugged in some vague agreement, and Ian added a hearty vomit off the side of the mountain. 

“Aight, scrublings,” Alex said, “stand back.” She pulled the door from its hinges with amazing force, and delicately placed it to the side. “We’re in,” she proclaimed, cheekily raising an eyebrow.

We stormed in, weapons blazing, into a magnificently sized throne room. Halfguard, formerly milling around in there, doing maintenance, stared us down with cruel eyes. In the center of the room, Chaos and Xaneeta were occupied by a pillar-shaped device.

“What up, bitches?!” I shouted, bursting into the room. I fired off flaming grenades from my guardstaff, and Halfguard went up in flame.

Chaos spun around, now with a flowing and over-the-top cape. “Why hello, Guardians! Come to watch the fireworks, or are you here for the parade?”

“No, actually,” Xaneeta added, “this jackass has  _ actually _ choreographed a full parade with the Halfguard. He taught them to play instruments, too, just for this stupid occasion.” 

“Shut up, Xaneeta,” Chaos groaned, “that is entirely unimportant as of now. We are here for universal domination, remember?” I saw a Halfguard out of the corner of my eye, holding a copper-brass trombone, shuffling nervously.

“Yeah, I noticed that,” Ian observed, “I was wondering about that. What songs are you planning to play?”

“That’s not important,” Chaos moaned.

“ _ Hail the Conquering Hero _ ,” Xaneeta answered, “that and  _ Wells Fargo Wagon _ , except he changed the lyrics to reflect the coming of my dad’s planet.”

“Shut uuuup,” Chaos continued to complain.

“No kidding,” Ian said, “I sung both of those songs before!”

“Guys, please,” I re-railed us, “we’re supposed to be trying to kill each other? Maybe we could, uh, DO SOMETHING?!”

“Oh, believe me,” Solomon said, brandishing his sword, “I have some choice words for this ruddy bastard.”

“Well, before we do that,” Chaos said, brushing nonexistent dust from his suit, “I have a little surprise for you all. Say hello,” he directed us to the rafters, “to your little friend!”

Dangling from a noose at the top of the chamber, was Julienne Docter. We all gasped in horror, but I at least decided to do something.

“YOU SON OF A BITCH!” Solomon screamed, righteous anger burning within him, searing past his calm facade. Gordon shoved past me, and held his guardstaff out in front of him, and fired. From the end of the gun, full-on fucking sword blade was propelled with blazing speed. The blade shot through the air, and pierced Chaos through the heart.

Chaos gasped as it shot through him, and very indignantly yet still in an upper-crust manner, said, “Owwwww! What the hell was that?” He pulled the electric blade from his chest, and it disappeared. “What did you think was going to happen? I don’t have a real body! I- it feels like you broke a rib! I don’t even have  _ real  _ ribs, how the hell is that supposed to work? Ow!” He rubbed the wound, and commanded, “Halfguards, destroy them!”

Halfguards flooded down from the rafters, screeching and baring shattered teeth. What they weren't ready for was us, ready to go down swinging. Except Ian. He just kinda screamed.

I speared a Halfguard with my gladius, and threw it into another. A well-placed slice severed both of their heads, and they crashed to the floor with metallic clangs, and I cleaved their torsos in half for good measure.

“Heads up!” Alex exclaimed, slamming Halfguard from the air by their feet. I slid out of the way, as they collided heftily with the floor. Alex pushed past me, and shot another pair of Halfguards. She turned back to smile at give me a thumbs-up, which I reciprocated.

I cut down Halfguards by the legs, pushing forward to the pillar device. I spied Chaos frantically shoving the destiny engine upon it, desperately trying to make it fit. The Halfguard with the trombone descended upon me, and I made a specific effort not to damage the instrument as I cut the beast in half. Those things cost a lot to make, after all. I grabbed the trombone as it fell, then gently placed it on the floor. Lena came rushing past with a massive battleaxe, and made a very deliberate effort to slice the trombone into as many pieces as she could.

“Okay, yeah,” I said sarcastically, “real big fuckin’ thanks for that one. Dick.”

She stared at me and wiggled the axe. I stepped slowly away from her, trying not to make any sudden movements.

“Come on, come on!” Chaos shouted at the device, “What’s with this thing?!”

I looked up, and saw Gordon in the air, severing the wings off of airborne Halfguard. I couldn't help but notice it seemed he was protecting Julienne’s body.

One more Halfguard stood in my way, and I struck its shoulder fiercely. Oh, fuck. The Halfguard's armour resisted my blade, and seized me by the neck.

“Yee-hoo!” a voice  shouted. Leaping over us, Nick divided the Halfguard detaining me by the diagonal with his katana, and the arms of it fell to the floor. “You're welcome, dude!”

“Oh, son of a fuck,” I remarked destitutely, “now I owe that fucker my life. Shit. Fuck. Shitfuck.”

Now, I was standing against Xaneeta and Chaos, gladius at the ready. “It's over, fuckers,” I declared, “drop the engine or I smash it first.”

“Well, um, you see- HAHA!” Chaos shouted triumphantly, as he swept us all back to the door with some orange, elemental barrier. “Oh, oh my, that was strenuous,” he said, gasping for breath, “but now it is I who has the upper hand!”

“Don't do this, brother,” Solomon urged his sibling, “this is not what you want!”

“Oh yes it is, brother,” Chaos spat, twirling the engine, “you far-sighted cracker barrel! I exist to destroy and bring mayhem, what do I stand to lose here, hmm? And, as well, what do you have to gain?”

“I am here to keep the peace,” Solomon announced, “and to bring about Alpha’s return!”

“Well, you're fun,” Chaos sniped back, “and what about your students, eh? What reason do they have to defend this world?”

“Listen buddy,” I said resignedly, “I'm just here because my teacher wanted me to go.”

“And also not dying would be nice also, too,” Ian added meekly.

“Yeah, that too,” I agreed.

“Well, you see, children,” Chaos said, “fuck you.” With great purpose and intent, he slid the engine into a slot on the pillar, and it whirred deeply. 

“NO!” Solomon screamed, as we all watched a strange swirling light shoot from the device, and burst through the top of the mountain. “We’re too late.”

“But what if we smash the machine?” I suggested, “maybe we can-”

“There's no stopping it,” Solomon denied me, “it's fired. There's no going back now.” The world around us began to shake, and I saw Julienne's body fall to the floor. 

Chaos laughed at us maniacally. “YES! I'VE WON! I'VE DONE IT! HAHAHA! SUCK IT, FUCKERS!”

Xaneeta side eyed him, which translated to “Dude, chill.”

Chaos continued to laugh, and relish in his glorious victory. “Now, for the first performance of the Horns of Dest- oh. Right. You're all dead. Xaneeta, hand me my iPod. I need celebration music.”

Xaneeta handed him the miniature device, and music began to play quietly from it. “Uh, erm, how do you turn up the volume, Xaneeta?”

“There's a button on the side,” she informed him gravely, “it should be the one closer to the top.”

Chaos shoved his finger down on the button, and the music played louder. I could now recognize  _ Hail the Conquering Hero _ . “This is still too quiet,” Chaos remarked, “I knew I should've installed a sound system in this place.” He paused to hum to the music, but his eyes snapped open when he realized he had forgotten something. 

“Oh, you're still here, are you?” he said, indicating us, “well, I needed to harvest your Stones, anyways.” He held up his guardstaff, and made it a gun. Without even giving it a thought, he fired at Ian. 

“NOOO!” I screamed, wanting to duck in front of him, but still frozen with fear, as the bullet seemed to move in slow motion towards him. I saw his eyes impossibly wide with terror, his mouth open in a silent scream.

Then, like a saviour angel, Gordon fell down from the air, and took the bullet right through his chest. He reeled as it penetrated his heart, and he fell to the floor. His armour peeled off, and he was left in his clothes, spread-eagled atop his former companion’s corpse. 

I felt the world go horribly numb. I could see everyone rushing to Gordon, but I refused to process it. I wanted to help, but I couldn't move. Lena chased after Chaos and Xaneeta, but they disappeared into a shadow.

I collapsed to my knees, and all I could think was, “I'm glad it wasn't me.”


	20. Under Siege By Jupiter

The earth beneath us trembled, and the mountain began to tremble. Swiftly and demandingly, “We need to get out of here!”

We all rushed to the door, but Ian lagged behind. I turned to ask, “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!”

“I’m not leaving them!” Ian said, heaving Gordon and Julienne's bodies behind him.

“They're already dead, what the hell does it matter?!”

“I said- ungh!” he strained to pull them along, “I'm not leaving them!”

I looked anxiously to the door and then back to him, and said, “I hate you and myself.” I ran back to him, and helped him lift the bodies out of there. We exited the chamber, and realized that we were still at the top of a fucking mountain.

“Ah, shit,” I remarked, “how the hell’s this gonna work?”

I noticed that the others were already at the base of the mountain, and my most idiotic logic reasoned, “Maybe we can jump?”

“Are you fucking crazy?! We’ll never survive th- actually, yeah. Our armour is designed to negate any environmental damage, so we should be able to sustain a fall like this. Just be careful with the-”

Without hearing him finish his sentence, I jumped off of the cliff at full fucking force, Gordon's body dangling from my tense hands behind me.

“Body!” I heard Ian shout at me, as he descended from the mountain in much a similar way, except more scream-y. “AAAAAAAAAHHH!!!” he exclaimed, falling faster in front of me.

He slammed into the ground, Julienne flopping hard onto his back. I landed soon after, but on my feet. The shock of it rippled through me, but it didn’t hurt. I laid Gordon down on the ground, and patted his head.

“Later, man,” I said quietly. Ian placed Julienne next to him. I noticed their hands were both open, as if they had wanted to hold each other one last time. 

Ian closed their eyes. “Rest easy, fellas.” He fell on his haunches at their feet, and cried quietly. “I’m so sorry… I’m so, so sorry…”

“It’s alright man,” I said to him, “it was his choice.”

“The only reason I’m alive,” he sobbed, “is because he’s dead! Oh, hell…” He burst into loud wailing, and I hugged him firmly to keep him calm.

“It’ll be alright, buddy,” I shushed, “Shh, shh.” He hugged me harder.

“No,” he mourned, “no, it’s not. It’s never gonna be.”

I patted him on the back, and continued to shush him.

“Guys,” Alex said, “we’ve got company!  _ Big _ company!”

“As opposed to a small business?” Ian managed to insert.

“Worse,” Alex denoted, a hint of a smile in her voice, “look.”

Ian and I turned our heads towards Alex, and, in the distance, a vast blackness dominated the sky. No stars shone beyond it, stealing the light and goodness from the sky. A low, rippling tone blared through the air, trumpeting destruction.

“What the hell is that?!” I exclaimed, “Somebody please tell me what the hell is going on here!”

“Dark Omega,” Solomon said, at an audible whisper. “It's the amalgamate.” 

Fear shot down my spine, as I finally connected the concept of Dark Omega with mortal terror. “What the hell do we do now?!”

“To the school,” Solomon ordered, “we need to get to our ships, now!”

“How? Alex asked, “They're hours away!”

“I hate that I'm saying this,” Solomon admitted, “but we need to steal.”

“Alright!” Nick cheered, “I call dibs on this one!” He smacked his palm against a sports-car with the windows blown out. 

“I'm sorry but, that is the exact opposite of what we need.” Solomon walked over to a golden-painted minivan, and sat down in the driver's seat. “Get in.”

“Oh, this is so fucking lame,” I complained.

“Listen,” Solomon said tensely, “it is fuel-efficient, and prevents any of us from driving away, so  _ get in the FUCKING VAN! _ ”

“Alright, dude, chill,” I said. “No need to go fucking nuts.”

We all crammed into the seven-seated minivan, uncomfortable to be around each other as ever. Lena sat with Alex in the far back, Ian and Nick sat across the aisle from each other, and I sat in the passenger's seat.

Solomon stuck his guardstaff into the keyhole, and the car started.

“You can do that?” I asked.

“Yes,” he confirmed, “but if I ever catch any of you doing this, I am taking your staffs.”

As the car started, Ian remembered, “We forgot Gordon and Julienne.”

“Oh, son of a bitch,” I griped, “do we really need them? They're just gonna stink up the car.”

“Yeah,” Ian said obnoxiously, “we can't just leave them there!”

“Ajay,” Solomon said, “just put them in the back. We can deal with this later, but for now we need to move!”

“Fiiiine,” I complained. I carried them one at a time into the back, making my best effort to make them not be touching weird.

“This'll do,” I finished, slamming the door behind me. I heard a crunch, followed by Ian asking “what was that?”

“Nothing!” I lied, whilst a refrain of “fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck” ran through my head. I sat back in the front seat, and Solomon pulled away onto the street.

I gazed in the rearview mirror, and saw the mountain collapsing in the background. “Well that sucks, I guess,” I thought. “It looks somewhat more shitty now.”

Suddenly, a horrific stench filled my nose. Then, complaints filled my ears.

“Solomon,” Ian moaned, “Nick’s smoking back here!”

“No I'm not,” Nick said. In the mirror, I could very clearly see him with a blunt in his mouth. 

“I can see you putting it in your mouth you dense motherfucker,” I scolded him.

He put his other hand over the cigarette. “No you can't.”

“Nikolas Fumperdink, please dispose of that marijuana cigarette,” Solomon commanded dully.

“What cigarette?” Nick said, his hand no longer blocking it from view.

“Nick,” Alex mommed, “get rid of the weed.”

“Okay,” he finally admitted, “but how?”

“There is a window,” Alex exemplified, “toss it out.”

“It won't open,” Nick denied.

“Then maybe you'd like me to toss you through it” Lena seethed, “you citrus-stained bastard!”

“I can't open it, really!” 

Furious, Lena stood up before Alex could stop her, and forcefully slid Nick’s door open. “Toss it,” she commanded, “or I toss you!”

“Okay, okay!” Nick finally relinquished the cigarette out the door, and the scent with it.

“Thank you,” Lena said. She proceeded to punch him in the testicles, then the jaw, then returned to her seat. “He needed that.”

“I really didn't!”

“Shut up, you worthless sack of ass!” Lena spat at him, both verbally and literally.

There was a few moments of silence, juxtaposed against the rumble of the car on the road, before Ian required himself to say, “Are we just going to glaze over the fact that his last name is Fumperdink?”

“Yes.” I creaked. I gazed out the window at the large, fearful planet on the horizon. It made me horribly unsettled, seeing a celestial body that wasn't the moon hanging in the sky.

“We should be back in about an hour,” Solomon updated us, “depending on traffic and whether or not we care to follow any laws regulating vehicular usage.”

“As in…?”

“Speed, safety, or, if we are faced with the necessity, manslaughter.”

“Ooo-kay then,” I backed away, “never say that again ever at all.”

“I'll try,” he said with a unsettlingly deadpan attitude.

I tapped my toes on the floor, waiting patiently for something to happen.

“Can we turn on the radio?” Ian requested. I turned on the radio, and the foreboding tones of CBC news anchors played oafishly through the speakers.

“- has been seen in the sky. Government officials are recommending that civilians remain indoors.” A warning then blared through the car, screaming about the planetary overcast.

“Hey, maybe change it?” Ian said nervously.

I flipped between channels, but the same thing was playing on all of them: a forecast of destruction and horror.

“You know what,” Ian interjected, “I brought my iPod, can we plug that in? Does this car have Bluetooth? Actually, just turn off the radio, I can play it just from here.”

I switched the radio off, and equally foreboding emo music played from Ian’s iPod. “Yeah, uh,” he realized, “this is not helping either.”

I rolled my eyes. This was going to be a long half-hour.


	21. Things Continue to Suck (Hard)

Fifteen minutes to go. We were now back in the city, and it was somewhere between “duck and cover” and “start looting before the apocalypse”. People were quietly slipping in and out of buildings with stolen goods, nobody courageous enough to do anything about it. We skimmed by a police car, the window splattered with blood from the inside. Faint wails could be heard from inside buildings.

“Are we there yet?” Ian asked fearfully.

“One more time, you prune-juice-looking dirtfucker,” Lena threatened, “and I make a guillotine outta that door.”

“Not everything needs to be solved with violence,” Ian reasoned.

“But it  _ can _ be,” Lena said, holding up her guardstaff. 

“Alrighty then.” He looked out the window, and was shocked by the destruction around him. “Jeez…”

“I know man,” Nick said, “wish I could’ve been here for this. Must’ve been wicked!”

“I wish I could’ve been here, too,” Ian griped, “instead of getting Gordon killed, I could’ve done something! I could’ve helped people!”

“Oh, come on,” I griped back, “you’re not prune juice, you’re _ whine! _ Just fucking chill!”

Alex snickered. Ian glared at her; “That wasn’t even good! I mean, he could've said quit your  _ graping _ ! That would've fit just as well!”

“It really doesn't,” Alex chuckled.

“Shut up,” he grumbled, and sunk into his seat.

She poked him playfully, and wiggled her eyebrows. “Hey.”

“Yes?” he murmured.

“Chill.”

I rolled my eyes at them. Thirteen minutes. Son of a bitch.

Then, of all people, Nick noticed something. “Uh, hey guys,” he said worriedly, “fuck’s that shit up there?” His unsteady finger pointed to the sky, as a large, grey shape began to quickly descend on the town.

“Yeah, um, I have a related question,” I said to Solomon, “do you think you could, uh,  _ speed the fuck up?!?! _ ”

Solomon's foot collided swiftly with the gas pedal, and we shot forward. Solomon was shouting something that sounded like a prayer, and the rest of us with awareness of our surroundings screamed.

“YEE-HAAA!” Nick rejoiced as the clunky minivan was propelled with blazing speed, “NOW WE’RE TALKIN’!”

“FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK” Ian exclaimed, “DEATH, DEATH, PAIN AND DEATH AND SUFFERING AND FUCK!”

“SHUT UP,” I shouted back at him, “SCREAMING WILL HELP NOTHING!”

“YOU'RE DOING IT TOO!” Alex countered loudly.

“I'M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU ALL!!!” Lena screamed.

The large, grey mass collided with the earth just meters behind us, and the van flew up into the air as it came crashing down.

The van spun around in the air, landing by some miracle back on its wheels.

I stepped shakily out of the car. “What. The FUCK?!”

Ian wobbled out, too, and sat on the now torn up pavement. “I have similar questions!”

“Fuck you,” Lena said queasily, “fuck you all. Fuck that fucking shitass meteor or whatever the fuck. Just fuck.”

Solomon came out to look at the giant mass, and declared, “It's a rock cloud.”

“It's a what now?” I asked.

“It's a cloud,” he answered, “but made out of rock.”

“Maybe I can do something about it,” Alex suggested, “I’ve moved some rocks before, this shouldn’t be too different.” She outstretched her arms, and strained to exert any geokinetic force upon it, but it refused to move. “Well, shit.”

Solomon went over to it, and stroked the large rock-cloud. “This isn’t rock. Nothing real, anyways. It’s air, made in the shape and properties of rock.”

“Soooo… rock?” Ian supposed.

“No,” Solomon denied, “it’s an elemental abomination. The result of Chaos and Dark Omega’s meddling with the base properties of the universe. That whole planet, up there, is all the same kind of primordial treachery.”

“Space rock, then?” I concluded.

Solomon groaned. “Given the chance, I would plunge my Stone into all of your brains and give you a mental what-for.”

“Kinky,” Nick contributed.

I heard a meaty “THWACK!” on Lena’s part. “Thank you,” I appealed.

Solomon went back to the van. “We’ll have to deal with this later. Let’s keep moving.”

We piled back into the van, and continued on our way. I stared out the window, as similar rocky horrors made their way through the atmosphere.

I sighed heavily at the signs of destruction. This was all our fault. I just hoped there would be some way to un-fuck it up. That’s the scientific term, of course.

Ian seemed quite concerned with all of this.

“You alright, man?” I asked him.

“Yeah, yeah,” he dismissed sadly, “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look too fine,” I argued.

“Well, I am,” he said firmly, “it’s not your problem.” I furrowed my brow, and continued to watch the stones fall. 

  
  
  


We arrived at the school. A smaller meteor-cloud had fallen through the roof, but the school seemed otherwise fine, unfortunately. We stepped out again, and we placed the bodies on the parking-lot cement.

We laid them out together, their stiff limbs frozen still in eternal slumber.

“Well, that’s a bummer,” Alex noted.

“Agreed,” Nick said, sticking a pair of cigarettes up his nose, “but check this shit out, hehe.”

“Great, great contribution,” I clapped sarcastically, “just fucking brilliant.”

“Thanks man,” he misunderstood.

Ian observed the corpses, and solemnly asked, “What should we do with them?”

My hand lit up with flame, and I shrugged. “At least something.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“It’s all we can do for now,” I said, “or else they might turn them into Halfguard or something.”

“No,” Alex butted in, “I can do you one better.” She raised her arms, and cement and dirt began to cover Gordon and Julienne. Pebbles piled up over them, and only the faces remained uncovered.

“Anyone want to say anything?” she asked. 

“Only what Gordon would,” I said jokingly.

“I do,” Ian said, “I just don't know what.”

“I think now would be a time,” Solomon offered, “to simply say goodbye.”

Small stones rolled over their faces, and they hardened into the ground. 

“I hate to spoil the funeral,” Solomon spoke again, “but we need to get going. It's up to us to take down Dark Omega, and get back the Destiny Engine.”

“Well, I'd love to stay and mourn, too,” I said, “but the inevitable destruction of our universe and all that exists within it is just a little more important. Can we all agree on that, at least?”

There was a chorus of “yeah, I guess,” and, for once, we were going to work together. I hope.


	22. Magic Space Teenagers Driving Roswellmobiles

The school was more damaged than I thought. The lights were all out, and we had to light the place with a combination of my fire and some fluid from Nick, which, by the way, should never be said in any context ever again at all ever.

“This is gonna be hell for the school board,” I remarked.

“I can confirm,” Solomon sighed, “that that is indeed the case. Oh, this is a catastrophe.”

“So, how do we get to the ships?” Alex asked, “The cloud falling blocked off the library.”

“Well,” he suggested, “it should only be a matter of slashing away at debris.”

“Except, of course,” Alex interjected, “it’s magical space debris.”

“I suppose we should make an effort to resolve the problem, at least,” he sighed. We followed him to the blockage, and, sure enough, a bit of broken cloud was laying in front of the door. We all scratched our heads at this, pondering how to get past it.

“What if I tried to melt it?” I offered, “That should work.”

“Or maybe some acid?” Nick offered, being uncharacteristically helpful.

“I have a better idea,” Lena said. Then, with the strength of the whole school body, she punched the stone into pieces, with her bad arm, no less. “That sound about right?”

“I-” Solomon stuttered, “yes.”

“Good,” she said sternly, “now get in the fucking pods.” Under fear of execution, we shuffled into the library, and down into the hangar. The saucers were, thankfully, safe and intact.

“How should we do this? One for each?” Ian asked.

“Well, given the incapable nature of some of you,” Solomon said condescendingly, “I would say you should all be paired up. Lena and Alex, Nick and I, and Ajay with Ian.”

“Um, uh, hold on,” Ian questioned, “I can kind of tell who’s the idiot on which team for you guys, but what about me and Ajay?”

“Yeah, uh,” I concurred, “which of us is the idiot, here?”

“Well, I don’t think it would be fair to outline a particular individual between the two of you,” Solomon elaborated, “because you are both equally foolish, but I have more reason to worry about one of you.”

We looked at each other dubiously, and said, simultaneously, “That’s fair.”

Each duo found a saucer, and the engines reluctantly started. I took the controls, and pulled out of the rack. But then, of course, we were faced with another problem.

“Uhh, how do we get out?” Ian asked nobody.

“I do not know,” I admitted. “Is there, like, a space-door or something?”

“Follow me,” I heard Solomon’s voice say, playing from an invisible speaker. The saucer at the front of the caravan flew forward, and a slot just the perfect size opened in the side of the hangar.

“Guess that’s how,” I observed.

“No shit,” Lena insulted me, “you fucking meatbrain.”

“My brain is just as much meat as yours, okay?” I said, trying to return fire.

“Measure them,” she snapped back, “I’m sure you’ve got a lot more rattling around in there than I do.”

“I can’t tell if that was an insult, or who that was even supposed to hurt.”

“Fuck you.”

“Alrighty, then.”

All of our saucers slid out of the hangar, and over the parking lot. I should really look into the logistics of that hangar, but, then again, it would be a nightmare for anyone to explain. The three ships flew into the sky, and aimed at the planet hanging just outside of our orbit. The black mass only became more intimidating as we flew towards it.

Just like in my dreams, it was hundreds of times the size of the Earth, and was covered in anomalous landmarks. I could see watery forests, and seas of shadow, and, not least of all, the stone clouds. Because of my curiousity, the viewscreen showed an image of Canada and North America behind us as we flew out of the atmosphere.

I heard Ian sigh heavily as the image appeared.

“Sucks, I know,” I told him, “but what’re you gonna do?”

He sighed again. “Not much. Not like there’s anything I can do. I mean, Solomon still hasn’t told me about what my powers do. As far as I can tell, all I can do is make a cool sword.”

“Come on, man,” I encouraged, “you can do more than that.”

“No,” he said sadly, “I really can’t. I can barely keep from disappearing from existence.”

I frowned, and decided to change the topic. “Solomon, why didn’t we use these ships to get to the engine faster?”

“Well,” he began, “do you remember when I said I wanted to fight Dark Omega on my own terms? That’s what I meant.”

“What’s that about, then?” I heard Alex ask him.

“Well, Dark Omega’s terms are destroying worlds and not caring about the consequences. If I couldn’t bring Alpha back to life, then I could at least take my revenge on that murderous bastard.”

“That’s another thing,” Alex realized, “you said you ‘bring about Alpha’s return’ or some shit like that. How would that work? Isn’t he, like, dead? Like, isn’t death not a thing you can be not after you are… it? That wasn’t words but-”

“I understand your sentiment, Alex,” Solomon said, “but the logistics of any revival are incredibly vast and complex, I doubt you would understand even if I told you.”

“Try me,” she taunted.

“Fuck,” I murmured. Solomon went another half hour explaining it, and we all just sat at our consoles, slowly moving towards the amalgamate.

“... and the presence of thirty-one Guardians is incredibly important, because all of the elemental powers are necessary for the ritual, without them…”

“... But, because Alpha would be needed to complete the elemental thirty-one, it simply cannot be done, even the…”

“... 783, which is the most perfectly abstract number in existence, provides a basis for the body of the deceased to have its corporeal structures revitalized, resulting in-”

“ENOUGH!” I barked, “Shut up with the space numbers!”

“Well, I was just doing what was asked,” he said indignantly, “at least let me do my job. It’s what I was created for, of course.”

“That’s all well and good,” I said, “but I don’t  _ fucking care! _ ”

“That was fucking sweet, man,” Nick said, “I could  _ taste _ all of those numbers.”

“Someone please toss him out into the void,” Lena requested, “he’s worse than usual. And that’s sayin’ some shit.” She was uncharacteristically tired, and strangely showing a non-anger based emotion in her voice. 

“Lena,” I taunted, “have you gotten soft?”

“I’ve gotten blunt,” she retorted, “and anything blunt can very easily be used to administer a deadly strike to the temple, spine, or ribs, so don’t fucking test me, you kerosene-filled little shit.”

“Okay, then,” I said sheepishly. We were closer to the amalgamate now, and the features of its landscape became more vivid. I could see animals of metal and ice running around on the surface, chased by Halfguard looking for a very strange meal or an equally strange pelt.

“That’s some fucking weeeird shit down there,” Nick decided.

“Would never have guessed,” I snipped.

“Just a minute now,” Solomon announced, “we should be breaching the atmosphere any-” Wham! Turbulence shook the saucer as we got closer to the massive planet. “- SECOND!”

The turbulence evened out, but another problem became clear. Halfguard were swarming from their cloud perches, and we heard their screeches, even from the outside.

“Brace for impact!” Mr Solomon cried. The Halfguard flew at the saucers, forgetting that spaceship go fast. They slammed against the sides of the saucers, and I saw one’s ugly face smack against the window/screen/whatever the fuck.

“AH!” Ian screamed. “Can you slow down a bit? PLEASE?!”

“Nope!” I replied, continuing to slice through more Halfguard with the ship. Suddenly, something caught on the surface. I could hear an especially resilient Halfguard clawing at the top of the saucer.

“I think now would be a good time to talk about those weapons systems!” Alex shouted. 

“Uh, erm, right,” Solomon stuttered, “all you have to do, is, erm-”

“GET ON WITH IT!” Lena demanded loudly. 

“Guardstaffs!” Solomon exclaimed, “The ships will respond to guardstaff activation!” 

In the blink of an eye, the other saucers blazed to brilliantly coloured life, as the others activated their staves. 

Alex’s vessel came shooting past with a clump of rock attached to the front, crushing the Halfguard with its weight. Then, Solomon and Nick went by, their ship coated in a vicious green liquid, slicing Halfguard in two, and dollops of it went flying purposefully at others.

I held up my own, and prompted Ian, “Ready?!”

He fumbled with his staff, and dropped it on the floor. “Shit! Hold on!”

The roof was punctured by a claw, and a chunk was ripped from the ceiling. The hideous thing stuck its head in, and screeched at us.

“I CAN'T WAIT FOR YOU, MAN!” I shouted over the sound of air rushing past. I held up my staff, and the saucer started to burn as we came rushing to the ground. The screen was blotted out by flame,  and the fire, as I had worried it would, spread into the cabin. The Halfguard tumbled in, and was wreathed in flames.

Ian hopped up onto his seat, and waved helplessly at the monster. “Little help?!”

“I'm trying!!!” I yelled. Then, suddenly, something tore through the hull of the ship. A frightening crack punctuated the sound of the flames as a stony cloud ripped our saucer in half.

We were flung from the ship, and I managed to get my armour. I heard Ian scream, and I managed to turn to see him flail wildly as he fell. Thankfully, he got his armour on, too. Then, going faster than our ship would've let us go, I crashed into the earth of the planet. I hoped my armour would save me, but my head slammed against a rock, and I was unconscious again. In the brief moment I had before going under, I thought, “Not again.”


	23. A Dear Friend

Because I am apparently deserving of no rest, I had another terrifying dream. This time, it was less a series of events, and more of a collection of concepts.

The world was to be left in tatters, then broken again at reforged as part of the amalgamate. 

People would die. Everyone would die. Except for us. We were the useful ones. We could govern this hideous new world. Resist, and we will join our friends in unmarked graves, seen only as meat to be consumed by maggots, and maggots to be consumed by the dirt, and the dirt by the universe and the universe by time. This would be our fate. 

If we wanted death, we would be refused it. But, if we brought it about, slaying the ones we once protected, would be made immortal. Our new master would treat us well.

These were not my thoughts. I knew Chaos was in my mind, frightening me, indoctrinating me. But, then, why did I not want to resist? 

Because I had things to live for. I had a universe to protect. Even if Alpha was gone, they had still left behind a legacy; the peoples of the Earths. Even if I couldn't put everything back to the way it was, I could keep it from being broken any more. This is why I was a Guardian, because I would fight for this truth. I would fight for my infinity, not the evil world ruled by a tyrant.

No, I refused this villainy seeping through my mind, and returned to the waking world. My eyes broke open, and I sat up. My body was wracked with pain, but I stood up, fighting it with my life. I shouted as I stood to my full height, and my spine crackled as my faculties returned. Now, I summoned flames to engulf me, and their burning strength fueled me.

I looked around, and the volcano that I had seen in my mind for so long was looming in front of me. Climbing the cliff face was Ian, crawling to the top.

“Ian!” I shouted, “What are you doing?!” He ignored me and kept climbing.

Recklessly, I followed him, making haste up the mountain, but I was always behind him. He seemed to have a great purpose behind his actions, each hand placement incredibly deliberate.

“Why the hell are you doing this?” I asked him.

“Go away,” he said shakily. 

“Why?!” I continued.

“Because I need to be alone!” Fear was in his voice, now. He was more sure about his words than ever before.

“Where are you going?

“Up!” He was becoming slightly less cryptic. I had a suspicion, but I hoped I was wrong.

We were now close to the top. I was really close behind him, but he was still ahead. He pushed himself up onto the ledge, and stood up.

Quickly, I crawled up after him. He was now standing at the edge. “What the hell are you doing?! What is this?!” I tried to convince him.

“I'm sorry,” he said, his voice breaking hard now. Tears were falling down his cheeks. “I caused this. It's all my fault.” 

“What the hell are you talking about? What's wrong?!”

“I got them all killed! Hundreds and hundreds of people, all because of me!”

“That wasn't you,” I argued, “that wasn't even close! That was Chaos, you fucking idiot!”

“But I could've stopped him!” Ian argued, “I could've stopped them, but I just stood there, doing nothing, afraid!”

“We all failed, dumbass! I was closest, and I-”

“You at least did something,” he fought, “but I… I just disappeared.”

I couldn't argue with this. I stumbled over my words, saying, “But-”

“And that's not all,” he said angrily, “I got Gordon killed, too. I had my own little trolley problem right there, and I just had to go multi-track drifting! I fucked it all up, man! I FUCKED IT UP!” He was screaming now.

“That doesn't mean you have to do this, then,” I pleaded, “that-that means the exact opposite of-of this.”

“You're lying through your teeth, buddy,” he said, “this is exactly what needs to be done.”

“Don't!” I cried out, “Jus-just fucking don't! Please, just wait and see, I'm sure it'll-”

“It'll what? It'll all just fix itself?” He turned to face me again. “Solomon told us exactly and precisely why none of this will fucking work! It's all gone… those clouds… there were too many… there's no way my family survived…”

“Then wait and see! Have at least a little hope!”

“But what if they are dead, huh? What if I come back home to found a couple of corpses under a cloud of rock?! What fucking then?”

I stuttered again. “Well, I- you know-”

“I'm sorry you were here for this,” he said grimly, “I wish I could've done this while you were asleep. I didn't want you to have to see this.”

“Ian, no!!!” I reached out for him.

“There's a big temple out that way,” he pointed into the distance with his right arm, “I think that's where we're supposed to be.”

“Don't do this, man,” I tried.

“Goodbye, Ajay.” He spread his arms, and fell backwards into the volcano.

“IAN!!!” I screamed for him, and plunged in after. I had no idea what the hell I was doing, but I needed to try. I needed to save him. I didn't care if I fucking died, I needed to save him. Halfway through the dive, something tugged at my back, but I brushed it off. I was going full speed at that fucker, and I was gonna save him.

Except it was too late. He had already been dissolved in the acid. There was no body.

“IAN!!!” I screamed in vain. “No…” In my haste, I missed that wings had grown from my back, and I was floating over the acidic pit.

I flew around the mouth of the volcano, but there were no signs of him. No… This… This just couldn’t have happened, I was still dreaming, right? This had to be bullshit, this had to be just some crazy space magic bullshit trick, yeah? In a moment I would wake up for real, and Ian and I would be safe.

Except no. This felt too real. Even in the dreams created by Chaos, I could feel some falsehood behind it, some kind of surreality, but now, I felt none of that.

“NOOOOO!!!” I screamed, louder. I screamed louder and louder until my throat was raw. I couldn’t believe this. It couldn’t have happened. No… no… no…

I flew back up to the precipice, and sat down, head in my hands, and cried. Even if we won the fight against him, we had lost. I couldn’t go on without him.

Then, footsteps. Someone sat beside me, and poked me. “Hey, dude, you okay?”

My eyes snapped open. That voice- no, it couldn’t have been. I looked to my left, and there he was. “IAN?!”

He waved at me, smiling sadly a little. “Hi.”

I wrapped my arms around him, and hugged him as tight as possible. “Don’t you ever try and pull that shit again you crazy bastard. You fucking insane purple jackass.” It was my turn to sniffle emotionally. “What the hell was that, you fucking goblin child?!”

“Well, at first I was  _ trying _ to be dead,” he explained, “but then I regretted it. Then, I died and… there was what I can only call a game over screen.”

“What?” I asked incredulously.

“Yeah,” he said, now patting me on the back, “I was given the choice to continue from, I guess my last save point or whatever, or I could… end it. I guess I chose continue. Also, my score was like, super low, which I was not surprised by.”

“Don’t ever try that shit again, man,” I said, “swear to me, buddy.”

“Okay, okay,” he gave in, chuckling a little, “I won’t do it again.”

“Good,” I said, and held him even closer now.

“Oof!” he exclaimed. “Lay off a lil, please?”

“Sure,” I said, letting him go, “but only if you let me do this.” I kissed him on the mouth for a few seconds, and then pulled away again, smiling.

He looked flustered and shocked. He seemed unable to process what I had just done. “Was… Was that- was that gay?”

“You bet your ass it was,” I said, “now let’s go save the world, you beautiful moron.”


	24. Slice, Slice, Binch

“So,” Ian began, “how do we get over there?” The temple was far in the distance, surrounded by a clearing.

I spread my wings in anticipation, and raised an eyebrow smugly. “You know exactly how.” 

He grinned with delight. “Magical flying space boyfriend?”

“Magical flying space boyfriend.” I confirmed. I stood up, and flapped my wings. “Grab on, fucker, we're going flying.”

He wrapped himself around my front, and we flew off. He was squealing with joy the whole time. “WOO!” he exclaimed, “SPACE MAGIIIC!!!”

“Just because I'm carrying you doesn't mean you have the right to burst my eardrums,” I scolded.

“Okay, space boyfriend,” he said.

“And stop calling me that,” I complained.

“But we're in space,” he reasoned, “and you're my boyfriend. Space boyfriend.”

I rolled my eyes, but smiled a little. “You grape-flavoured jackass.”

I could see the temple in greater detail, now. It might have been black, but it was like Alpha's cape, in the way that it reflect the rainbow of itself. The architecture was a blend of all kinds of styles from Earth. It was a mishmash of culture, not defined by one society. I could see Russian, Victorian English, Indian, and East Asian shapes in it. I wondered if any Nova Scotia paneled walls were hidden in there.

Ian cuddled me a bit closer. “Hi.”

“Hey.”

“Love you.”

“You too.” I searched around the clearing, and found a suitable place to hide. Some water trees on the edge, wibbling in the wind. I landed in the little grove, and the light reflecting off of the Earth and from the sun made beautiful shapes through the trees. I landed on my feet, and then tipped over from Ian’s weight.

“Shit!” I cried, landing on top of him.

“I'd say something gay here,” he said, wheezing, “but I'm genuinely concerned for my health, right now.”

I slid off him, and stood up again. I tried to lean on the tree, but I fell in. A burbling “FUCK!” escaped my mouth.

“Beautiful,” he commented.

I swam out of the tree, not something I thought I would ever be able to say or do, and pointed a finger at him. Water spilled out of my mouth as I tried to speak, and he laughed like an idiot.

“AHAHA! Oh, holy shit, dude,” he said, clutching his side. He tried to support himself on the tree, but made my self-same mistake.

I was laughing at him, now. “Oh, you fucking idiot, aha!”

He stepped out of tree, furiously indignant, and said, “You did it too, okay?!”

I laughed harder. “Yeah, but you did it dumber!”

He scowled at me. “Shush.”

“Come here, man,” I said, still chuckling. I wrapped my arms around him, and very subtly warmed us up to get the water off.

“Thanks,” he said begrudgingly.

“No problem, man,” I replied. It was nice, not having to worry about certain doom in that moment. Just hugs.

“Are we, erm, intruding on anything?” Solomon stepped up behind us with the others.

Ian and I snapped to attention. “Uh, ugh, we were just, uh-” Ian stuttered.

“Is that what we're doin’, now?” Nick said slowly, “Alriiight.” He held tight onto Solomon.

“Please step away from me,” Solomon denoted.

“Okay, man,” Nick muttered, and then grabbed onto Alex.

“Fuck off,” she said.

“Come on guys,” he continued, “don't any of you love me?”

Lena kicked him in the crotch. “No.”

“Message,” he squeaked, laying on the forest floor, “received.” 

“So,” I began, “evil temple of pain and death. How the hell are we gonna be dealing with that?”

“Simple,” Solomon declared, “we go through the front door.”

  
  
  


“This is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid,” I chanted at a whisper, as we walked up to the front of the temple. Standing guard (ha) at the gates was a swarm of Halfguard, because of course.

“Yes, but, let's be honest,” Solomon said, not even trying to be quiet about it, “what other way would we get in? The roof?”

“I don't know,” I failed to guess, “maybe just in ANY OTHER FUCKING WAY THAN THE FRONT DOOR TO THE GATES OF HELL?!?!”

“At least be a little subtle,” he said calmly, we want to seem somewhat dignified.”

“Try me, bitch,” Lena muttered. “Hey, fuckfaces!” she shouted at the Halfguard. Fuckles.

The swarm turned their collective heads towards us.

“Yeah you're all gonna die,” Ian remarked, “have fun with that.” He turned to walk away, but I faced him forward again.

“Nice try.” I held my guardstaff at my side, and decided to taunt the Halfguard, too. “Hey, fuckos! Over here! We got an endless buffet, right here!”

“Eep!” Ian hid behind me. Heart of a lion, this one.

Then, a few metres in front of us, a shadow appeared. Out popped Xaneeta and Chaos, with the latter tauntingly holding up the destiny engine.

“Well, well, well,” Chaos mocked, “look who came.”

“Really, Chaos? 'Well, well, well’?” Solomon chastised him, “Honestly, I didn't think you could become any more trite with your cliches.”

“Shut up, it's menacing!” Chaos snapped. “You were menaced, right Xaneeta?”

She shrugged. “Not really.”

Chaos huffed at her. “Well, I never!”

“Can we please just cut to the chase?” I asked, “I really don't care about either of you’s bullshit.”

“Language, Ajay,” Solomon chided.

“So am I not allowed to say bullshit anymore? I questioned him, “When was that established?”

“No, not that,” he corrected, “that sentence you failed to form was hardly proper English.”

“Is this really the time for this?!” Alex asked.

“I don't see why it shouldn't be,” he said.

“I see two reasons,” Lena pointed out, “but I'm all for eliminating them. HUR-RAAH!”

She ran out and swung at Xaneeta, but the crowned Guardian caught her punch. “I should've chopped you up when I had the chance.”

“Same to you, bitch,” Lena spat, and punched at Xaneeta with her other hand. This knocked the wind out of her, and she fell back.

Xaneeta pulled out her guardstaffs, and the black blades flared to life. She stuck one through the gaps in her cheeks, and screamed, rushing at Lena at full tilt.

Lena held up her own guardstaff, and formed a mace. She slammed the sword out of Xaneeta’s hand, and whacked the Guardian of Shadow to the ground. She let out a furious berserker cry, and brought the mace down again, but Xaneeta pulled the sword from her mouth and sliced the mace from its hilt.

Xaneeta kicked Lena's legs out from under her, and stood up. She put her sword to Lena's throat, and threatened, “You lose. Stand down or I kill you.”

“Nice try, you shade-loving fuck,” Lena insulted. She twisted, and stood up, Xaneeta's blade cleaving her bad arm off. “Get ready, bitch.”

Lena held her guardstaff up to the wound, and shoved it in. Ian looked like he was close to fainting.

A large, transparent pink mass formed, smattered with streaks of blood. It was a massive, spiked arm, culminating in a clenched fist. “Suck my cock, fucker.” Lena swung with her massive arm, and batted Xaneeta away, and she collided with an unfortunate Halfguard.

Chaos looked around. “Yeaaah, I'm going to leave, now- WAAH!”

Lena struck him away too, except he crashed into the door of the temple, not lucky enough to have a flesh-pillow. “What are you waiting for?!” he commanded, “Destroy them!”

“Oh, fuck my duck,” Ian muttered, “that's a lotta guys.”

“But this time,” I said, “we know what guns do.” I whipped out my guardstaff, and the largest cannon I could imagine popped out in a glorious plume of fire. “Get ready for a barbecue, bitches!” I pulled the trigger on the cannon, and just absolutely went nuts. Flames spewed from the end, torching Halfguard from what seemed like miles away. 

The other pulled out their weapons, and started slashing and firing. Lena punched swathes of them into the horizon with her new hand, and Alex took them down with the skill of a marksman. Ian smacked them down with the flat of his blade, smacking a few in the face, too. Oh, and Nick was there, too. He did something, I guess.

I got down off of the cannon, and started to slice limbs and heads from their hosts. Now this was what a battle should feel like. “For Earth!” I shouted, cutting a Halfguard through the stomach. One descended on my from the air, but I stuck it through the chest, and kept on going.

I kept running and running, until I reached the steps of the temple. The Halfguard.were almost all defeated by now, and the others met me at the steps. We surveyed the battlefield, and knew we had won.

“So,” Ian said, opening the door a touch, “shall we?”

“You bet we shall,” I conferred, “let's see what that fucker’s made of.”


	25. Omegalomaniac

We pushed past the door with our combined force, and entered into a voluminous throne room. The only lighting was a rainbow-burning chandelier, which made it a surprisingly bright and colourful evil lair. Halfguard flew menacingly around the room like gargoyles, and screeched at us as we entered.

Then, at the end of the hall, was shadowy mass of writhing tendrils, topped with a humanoid torso. Some tendrils seemed to change and warp, melding together at will, and even forming the shapes of limbs, stretched out in despair. They seemed to wail in agony.

The body of this figure was massive, with each forearm the size of a bus. Any skin that would have been there was covered in black, yet iridescent Guardian armour. It was coated periodically with the elemental Stones of dead Guardians.

Lastly, was the terrifying head. The jaw was split open, like the face of a Halfguard, except the teeth weren't made of metal. As they went up, the bone-like enamel of fangs was unveiled, hidden by a set of cracked, metal lips. And the eyes… they looked like the lenses of a Guardian mask, but with red pupils searching from behind black lenses.

Beside this imposing figure, Chaos and Xaneeta stood opposite each other, vanguards of his villainy.

As soon as we saw it, all of us but Solomon were stopped dead in our tracks. The menacing figure laughed at us, his bass voice chillingly cruel.

“Well done, Guardians,” he croaked, “you have made it quite far. I had doubted that you would delay my victory at all, but you have proven entertaining.”

“Your tyranny ends now, Dark Omega,” Solomon declared, “relinquish those stones now, or we will destroy you.”

Dark Omega cackled, his head rearing up. “What would you do to destroy me, eternal one? Stab me with you miniature utensils? I am not a man you can just walk up to and spear through the heart.”

“Even titans can be felled,” Solomon said sternly, “and we are here to do just that.”

“Oh, just listen to you prattle on,” Chaos moaned, “you see, this is why I'm the fun brother.”

“You are not the fun brother!”

“Yes I am, shut up.”

“What should we do with them, daughter?” Dark Omega asked Xaneeta.

She shrugged. “I don't know. I don't really care much for the pink one, you can kill her, I guess. Her and the green one.”

Nick snapped out of his haze, and said, with more conviction than usual, “Hey!”

“Speaking of the pink one,” Lena said, stepping forward, now with a more reasonably sized arm, “eat my ass.” The guardstaff arm shot out, and went to punch him in the face. A pile of tendrils shot up, and grabbed the arm.

“Impressive,” said Dark Omega, “but, unfortunately for you, it is sorely insufficient.” He yanked Lena towards himself, and wrapped her in a binding of the tendrils. “What is your name, little one? It's always more impactful to know about your victims. Much more depraved.”

“My name,” Lena said, struggling, “is what I'm gonna be pissin’ on your gravestone, you hentai-looking shitlicker.”

He chuckled at her sniping. “You're quite creative, aren't you? It's a shame that you're going to be dead soon. Daughter, do I really need to kill her?”

“I would appreciate it,” Xaneeta answered, “if you didn't call me 'daughter’.”

“Well, if you aren't happy with the name I gave you, as Chaos reports,” Dark Omega said, “then what's a name you like better?” he was sounding very much like a concerned dad.

“I don't know,” she said, “can we please just get to the murders already?”

“Nonono,” Ian panicked, “let's keep things as far away from the murder as possible.”

“You're immortal,” I complained to him, “what the hell do you care?”

“Wait,” Solomon paused, “what do you mean he's immortal?”

“Let's not get into this right now,” Alex advised.

“Well, if that's the way you want to do it,” Dark Omega said, “Halfguards, kill them.” Okay, now was the murder time.

“Laser swords!” I prompted. We all brought out our guardstaffs, and prepared to fight back. We managed to shoot down a few, but they overwhelmed us. His tentacles wrapped all of us except Solomon up, and we were pulled up to Dark Omega’s monstrous face.

Dark Omega laughed in victory. “It appears that you were, indeed, incompetent. It’s sad, really. I had hoped for more competition.” The massive fangs loomed mere feet from my face.

Solomon was now pushed to his feet by Halfguard, and restrained. Dark Omega smirked, or at least I think that’s what it was. “Finally, the first Guardian, brought to his knees. What do you have to say for yourself, little man?”

“I say this,” Solomon said deftly, “even though you may name yourself after the banished one, you will never be their equal. You are still just a Guardian, born from a mother like any of the rest of them all. You are not special.”

“The banished one, as you call them,” Dark Omega thundered, now looming more imposingly over Solomon, “is but a paltry mortal compared to me. I am beyond any comprehension of this profane world.”

“And I thought my brother didn’t shut up,” Chaos muttered. 

Dark Omega shot him a look. “I will get to you, jester.” Chaos looked offended, and puffed out his chest.

“Now,” Dark Omega resumed, “you will yield to me, or you will be killed.”

“I will never bow to you,” Solomon spat defiantly.

“I don't need your respect, Guardian,” Dark Omega returned coolly, “all I need is your Stone.”

A tendrils shot out, and grasped his throat. It squeezed harder and harder, and Solomon disappeared in a puff of smoke. A single crystal fell from the cloud, and into the clutches of Dark Omega. We all gasped at this. But, honestly, I was just surprised it hadn't happened sooner. Mentor death usually happens in, like, the first ten minutes of an adventure.

“There we are,” the titan said, “I was hoping to have him on my side, but, if this is how it must be…” The tendril pulled up to him, and forced the elemental Stone into his skin. The power of the stone flowed through his veins, now, and he rejoiced with a powerful roar.

“Ahaha,” he cackled, “and now for the final few stones, plucked from the skulls of my enemies.”

“You're not gonna kill us,” Nicked asked, “are you?”

“Well, now that I think about it,” Dark Omega mused, “I think it would be more painful to force them out. After all, if you're dead, you can't see the destruction of your universe and all that exists within it, can you?”

Suddenly, a fiery pain burned my insides, and I could feel something moving inside my head. I could feel my strength being stolen away, and I think I could even feel myself getting dumber. I cried out in pain, but it didn't stop. I could hear the others screaming, too. The Stone was coming through my forehead, taking with it any elemental power I had, and stripping me of my armour. It forced its way through my skin, and left a burning spot on my forehead. Whether it was real fire, or just imaginary, I wasn't in a position to tell.

Thankfully, the pain stopped, and, for the first time, I could see the Stone that had fueled me for so long. It flew away, and found a place on Dark Omega's forehead. Right next to Alpha's, I noticed. The others’ Stones, too, fell into place around the ancient crystal, and Dark Omega roared in victory once more.

“And now, my servants,” he addressed Chaos and Xaneeta, “your Stones.”

“B-but, my power!” Chaos pleaded, “I need this thing to live!”

“I will bring you out when you are needed,” his master instructed, “now I give you the same choice as your brother. Surrender or suffer.”

“Xaneeta,” Chaos prompted her, “get me out of here!”

She didn't respond.

“Pretty please?”

“Fuck off.”

“Bollocks.” A tendril shot through his head, and clutched the Stone. A surprise inside every box, it looks like.

“And now, daughter,” he prompted, “your crown.”

She forced the crown of her head with only slight wincing, and it floated up into her father. “There. Take them.”

“Thank you, daughter. Now, there is one special guest left, am I correct? I think that's him now, in fact.” 

A blue elemental Stone shot through the doorway, and landed in Dark Omega's hand. “Here he is now.”

He held up the Stones, and they meshed with his armour, and his body changed shape. We were relinquished from his tendrils, as he assumed a more human form. His legs appeared, bent backwards like a goat, and vicious horns sprang from his head. 

“There,” he hissed, “no more restrictions, no more facades! Now, I fulfill my destiny! Now, I become the ruler of eternity!”

The ground shook, and I knew something bad was going to happen. Dark Omega grew and grew, breaking through the ceiling of the temple. I looked up, and could see stars being blotted out. Darkness had won. It was all over.

“Planets of the universe,” he cried, “come to me! Join my new creation, the one true infinity!” Giant rocks came raining down at incredible speed, crashing into the planet. Fire came spilling down, the light of stars pulled with it. Then, just as quickly as it began, it stopped. 

“Eh?” Dark Omega interrupted himself. “Why did it stop?”

“Yeah, uh, I think that's me?” Ian was standing by the door, holding the Destiny Engine. “May or may not have temporarily disappeared from this plane of reality to foil your plans. You needed all of the Stones in existence, yeah? Looks like you don't have all of ‘em anymore.”

Dark Omega growled, and roared at him. “IDIOT! I WILL KILL THOSE YOU LOVE! I WILL TEAR THEIR BRAINS FROM THEIR SKULLS AND HAVE YOU WATCH AS I CRUSH THEIR CORPSES TO DUST!!!”

“That's a little bit excessive, but okay,” he said timidly. “But, right now, I have the Destiny Engine, a device supposedly capable of doing the impossible and modifying reality in its entirety. Which, as I understand, is something you cannot do right now.”

Dark Omega brought his fist down upon Ian, in an attack that would surely have killed him.

Instead, Ian popped up a few feet away, the Engine still in his hands. “Rude.”

“RAAGH!” the titan growled. He smashed him again, and again he popped back up.

“Could you maybe not? I'm trying to do a thing, here. Let me just- AHA!” Ian threw his guardstaff at Dark Omega's forehead with impossible accuracy, and Stones flew off of it. He shrunk back down to his tentacled form, and reeled backwards. All four Stones flew back to us, and we were rejuvenated with elemental power.

“Well, would ya look at that,” Ian remarked, “I just punched the devil in the face. Take that, cocksleeve.”

“HEE-YAH!” I exclaimed, igniting my gladius, and flying to strike him in the back. He reared up, and tried to swat at me, but I sliced a finger off with my sword. He screeched and clutched his hand, but quickly retaliated by slamming his back into me.

I flew back, but didn't stop. “Hey, all a y'all!” I rallied the others, “Let's fuck ‘em up!”

Lena came careening at him, and her newly-reformed arm whacked Dark Omega in the jaw, and brought him crashing into the wall. He turned around to face us, and breathed a cloud of fire. I absorbed it, and went to stab him in the eye. I sliced at the lense, and it bled black.

“Watch out, big boy!” Alex pushed through, and held up an RPG launcher guardstaff. “Bada BOOM, MOTHAFUCKA!” The rocket shot out from the staff, piercing his chest. Stones went flying everywhere, clattering to the floor. He was beginning to shrink.

“YOU!” The titanic Guardian lashed out with tendrils, which were chopped in half with Nick's katana. 

“Got some Japanese influence on my side, too,” he taunted. “Tsunami time!”

Tonnes of liquid acid came pouring down through the roof, swirling around Dark Omega, suffocating him. More Stones were being severed as the skin and armour burned away. Dark Omega was beginning to shrink.

“Nick, I'm gonna need a clear shot for this one!” Alex requested. Nick summoned the acid away, and boulders came through the walls, repeatedly smacking Dark Omega in the head and sides.

He screamed in fury, and coated the rocks in ice, then shattered them. “HALFGUARD! HELP ME!” he demanded. They refused, and simply looked on in distaste. “YOU ARE USELESS!”

His form warped again, and he lost his tendrils, and they became a serpentine tail. He whipped Lena back up into it, and she sliced through it, with her arm becoming some kind of hunting knife. The tail wrapped back up, and Dark Omega hissed at her. “Nice try, you coal-painted ballsack.”

“Pretty sure that's racist,” Alex chided.

“Pretty sure you need to shut the hell your face,” Lena snapped.

“Hit 'im where it hurts, ladies!” I instructed them.

“My favourite,” Lena said madly. Her arm became a large hammer, and she slammed it into his crotch. He howled in pain, and Alex sent a boulder down his gullet. He spat it back up, but another splash of acid went down his throat and then back out.

“Niiice,” Nick commented. 

“Don't make it weird, you weed-filled fuck,” I complained.

“Bummer, man.” I brushed him off, and flew back up to Dark Omega's face, nicking him with my gladius. It was a close call, though, as he snapped at me with his now less-impressive fangs.

“Daughter!” he called, “Help me!” 

Xaneeta picked up a few stones from the ground, and slid a few back into her head. “Nope.” She sat in the corner, and watched the fight.

Furious, her father summoned more elemental attacks to combat us. Lightning, wind, and, uh, trees? I think he was trying to do vines, but got a little confused along the way. But we were better. Slicing and crashing and burning, we slowly whittled down his supply of elements and Stones. He was now just a somewhat tall guy with a weird mouth and a rock in his head.

He pulled out his scythe guardstaff, but Ian knocked it from his hand with his scimitar. “Nice try, fucker.” Ian wedged the scimitar into Dark Omega's forehead, and levered it out. I caught the Stone as it flew off, and Dark Omega returned to being just another Guardian.

He was on his hands and knees, now, struggling to catch his breath. “How…? How is this possible?! I was a god! I was immortal, I was-”

“A giant fucking asshat,” I finished. I kicked him in the head, and he fell over. His armour pulled back, revealing a pale and injured man in a tattered suit. The battle was won.

Ian came running to me, grinning from ear to ear, and hugged me. This time it was him who kissed me. “I love you, you scarlet bastard.”

“I love you too,” I replied happily, “you fuchsia nutbag.”

I heard a whooshing sound, followed by a loud pop. “What did I miss?” Solomon said, now in a new, clean suit. “Oh, oh, my. This is- this is a mess!”

“Shut up, we're being gay over here!” Ian quieted him. 

“Yes, well, that's very nice, I suppose,” he said curtly, “but what are we going to do about all of this?”

Ian went to get something. “How about space magic?” He held up the Destiny Engine, and smiled.


	26. A Few More Miracles

“What, exactly,” Solomon asked, “are you suggesting?”

“You say this thing can do the impossible,” Ian elaborated, “yeah? So, we bring Alpha back to life, and they can fix this all! Uh, that is how they work, right?”

“Yes, but that’s not how it works,” Solomon explained, “that’s not something the Destiny Engine can do!”

“Have you tried it?”

“Well, no, but the spirit of a living thing is incredibly unique, and must be handled carefully. If we end up creating a clone of Alpha, they won’t be the same person as before, it’s that Theseus boy’s boat all over again.”

“Okay, well, I’m going to overlook your connection to ancient historical figures,” Ian continued, “and say to you that we have two of the conditions. I count thirty-one of us, including the Halfguard and Xaneeta, we’re surrounded by Stones of  _ every _ element,  _ and _ we have a part of the subject we’re bringing back to life.” He held up Alpha’s Stone, and Solomon’s eyes widened.

“Do you think it could work?” he asked.

“It kinda has to,” Ian said, “we may need to bend the rules a little, though. I’m not sure Halfguard will count for much of anything. But that’s what the Engine’s for”

“Xaneeta?” I asked, “Mind helping us out, here?”

She shrugged. “I guess. You gave me a juice, it’s the least I can do.” She wandered over, and called for the Halfguard, by exclaiming, “You! Idiots! Help us out here!”

Defaulting to her command, they scuttled down to meet us, and growled a little at us.

“Shush,” she scolded them.

“Alright,” Ian said, “circle up, y’all, we got some space magic to do.” We rounded out, and held hands. I was caught between Lena and a Halfguard. Just my luck. Lena’s guardstaff hand was very different to hold; it felt like cold metal, with some semblance of fleshiness.

Ian tossed the Stone into the center of the circle, and instructed the Destiny Engine, “Make this shit work, buddy.” He placed the Engine at his feet, and held hands with us.

“Now I’m gonna need you all to not think of any weird bullshit,” he told us, “and just focus on the fact that the universe is fucked up and that we need Space Jesus to help us out, here.”

I shut my eyes, and focused. I thought of all of the things that had gone wrong in just this past week or two. My house burned down, clouds crushing the Americas into rubble, just so much pain and suffering.

Heat surged through my body, and I half-expected to feel my clothes burn off again. I felt a strange wave of energy wash over me, and I was enveloped in calm. A tingling feeling crept up my spine, and through my bones, culminating in my hands. The power grew and grew in my palms, and a sound that I can only describe as powerful pulsed through the room. I opened my eyes, and there they were. Alpha was reborn.

They were very different so see in person than I had expected. I had expected them to have more of a presence, more of a godly persona, and yet… nothing. Alpha just felt like, I dunno, some dude. The cape was nifty, though. Shiny.

They looked around, confused. “What has happened, here?” they asked, “What is all of this destruction?” They turned their gaze to Dark Omega, limp on the floor. “I remember, now. He killed me, and then… and then I was… oh, my head.”

“Alpha, my lord,” Solomon knelt down before him, “this man has destroyed half of the universe, and killed so many Earth projects. Please, he must be punished!”

“So that is what has happened,” Alpha said calmly. They walked over to Dark Omega, and asked him, “Why did you do this, child?”

“He was in the service of the banished one, my master,” Solomon informed them, “he must pay for his crimes!”

Alpha turned to him. “No. I will not harm him. I will however, make sure he cannot harm anyone anymore. Solomon, I want you to take him to an abandoned Earth, and leave him there. He can surely survive there, but it will have to be on his own.”

“You say he destroyed half the universe,” Alpha asked, “yes?”

“Yes, sire,” Solomon said, “and we are standing on his vile product. He has also performed atrocities against the elements, murdered hundreds and hundreds of Guardians, desecrated the dead by making corpses into mockeries of Guardians, and-”

“That is enough, child,” Alpha calmed him, “I will fix what must be fixed.” Alpha raised their arms, and the ground shook, because the effects department is really good at that one thing. I looked to the skies, and planets were forming above us. They all shot out into space, returning to their homes.

“Usually,” Alpha said, “I would not interfere with the powers of life and death, but this is too much of a disaster to let go. Those whose lives were taken, I will return, but those whose lives were given, will stay as they are.”

Alpha walked over to the Halfguard, and touched them one by one on the foreheads. The black armour peeled off, and the people behind them came back to life. They even healed the Halfguard who were lying in pieces on the floor. I felt like I should apologize to them. Nah.

They all looked overjoyed to have been healed and returned. They held each other close, happy to be alive as themselves again.

“Thank you, Solomon,” Alpha said, “for raising these students into Guardians, and for helping me live again.”

“It is the least I could do, Alpha,” Solomon said. 

“And to you children,” Alpha continued, “for making such great effort and so many sacrifices to heal this broken universe.”

“Thanks a ton, white boy,” Lena interrupted, “now where’s my fucking reward?!”

Alpha shrugged. “I didn’t think you wanted one. But, if you like, I could replace your arm.”

“No way, fucknuts,” Lena refused them, “I’m keeping this shit.”

“Thank you, Alpha,” Alex said graciously, “for bringing our world back to the way it should be.”

“No,” Alpha said, “it is you who is deserving of thanks.”

“You people are just filled with fucking schlock,” I butted in, “aren’t you? Can we just get back to the dead-raising and the planet-fixing?”

Alpha chuckled. “Yes, my friend. Step outside, and see the fruits of your labour.”

All six of us left the broken hall, and everything had changed. The once-barren earth was now covered in bright green grass, and the trees had gone from water and back to bark and leaves. In the sky, I could see the Earth, now free of the stone clouds that had dotted the landscape.\

Alpha stepped out behind us. “It’s remarkable, isn’t it? Even though there are so many of these planets, each one of them never ceases to be strange and beautiful. Recreating our society might have been the aim of the Guardians of Knowledge, when these worlds were created, I only wanted to see worlds that could live and thrive on their own, without the tools of elemental powers. These Earths were to be our greatest creations.”

“Deep, man,” Nick affirmed. I looked over, and he was, of course, smoking weed. Beautiful. Just fucking fantastic.

“Your families should be waiting for you,” Alpha said to us, “I would suggest that you return to them. A worried parent is a sad sight, I know.”

“Thank you, Alpha,” I said, “I really appreciate this.”

“Well,” Alpha said, “I wouldn’t have done it if there was nobody around to do just that. Life is worth nothing if there is no other life to appreciate it, or if there is no life to be appreciated.”

“I have some problems with that philosophy,” Ian said, “though I don’t think I can properly articulate them.”

“That is quite alright,” Alpha told him, “but now is time to leave. I must return to the core system, and you must return to your homes. I hope to see you all soon.”

Chaos and Xaneeta stumbled past us, and Chaos waved to us, saying, “See ya, fuckers!”

Alpha sighed. “I do hope they don’t cause too much trouble. But, if they do, I think you young ones can handle it.”

We all left to the one remaining saucer (Chaos stole the other, because of course,) and flew back home. Our journey was finally over.

I hoped.


	27. Epilogue 1- A Happy Ending (And I Mean That Sexually)

We all sat down in the saucer, and Solomon got ready to drive it, when he remembered something. “Oh, damn. I forgot Dark Omega.”

I groaned. “Do we have to bring him?”

“We should,” Solomon said, leaving the saucer. He came back after a couple of minutes, with Dark Omega over his shoulder. Solomon plopped him down on the floor, and got up to pilot the saucer. The door closed, and we took off. Halfway through the ride, Dark Omega began to wake up.

“Kill… kill everyone you… you love…!” he muttered. He stood up in a rage, and pointed accusing fingers at all of us. “YOU!”

“You, too,” Ian said, pulling out his guardstaff. Manacles shot from the end, and Ian whipped the chains, and Dark Omega slammed on the ceiling and then into the floor. “Anything else you wanna contribute?” Silence. “Excellent.”

  
  
  


We landed in the parking lot of the school. As expected, the school had been repaired, and I could hear seagulls crowing in the distance. I took a breath of clean, Earth air, and sighed with relief. I looked over to the graves, and sighed with sadness. Lot of sighing happening today.

Ian and Solomon came out of the saucer, heaving out the unconscious Dark Omega between them. They plopped him on the floor, and Ian released him from the cuffs. 

“How is he so heavy?” Ian mused, gasping for breath, “He’s just this skinny little dude, what the hell’s with that?”

“I don’t fucking know,” Solomon complained, also out of breath, “and nor do I fucking care.”

“Hold on,” Ian said, “if you were just gonna take him back to space, why did we carry him out?”

Solomon just froze. “Fuck.”

“Let’s just leave him for now,” Ian said.

“Agreed.”

The others followed them out of the saucer, and they each took potshots at Dark Omega.

Then, he stirred. Dark Omega stood shakily, and roared weakly. “DEATH! I WILL KILL YOU ALL! I’LL KILL Y-”

Lena walked up to him, and sliced his head off with her armstaff. “Fuck off.”

“Well, that clears some things up.” Solomon accepted.

“I guess we should all go home, then,” Ian suggested.

“I guess we should,” I agreed, “I think we should give our parents some peace for once.”

“See you later, man,” Ian said to me.

“You too, bud,” I said, smiling at him.

I walked home, just that one time. It felt like something I should’ve done, taking in the world for what it was. This was what I had been fighting to save this whole time. It was all stupid and awful and ugly and I hated it.

I returned to my house, which had been repaired by the deus-ex-space-magic. My parents were overjoyed to see me again. They were even crying a little. It was weird, having the two of them care about me, especially now that I knew I was pretty much the farthest thing from being their actual child. This was also stupid and awful and I hated it. But, for once, I hated it a little less.

Ian sent me a message through my Tumblr again, saying, “my parents died but theyre okay now lol”, followed up by a picture of an absurd CGI frog on a unicycle. I smiled at his strangeness, and hoped to see him again soon.

  
  
  


I heard people talking about it on the news a lot, but they never actually nailed down what the hell happened. Some said it was a weird eclipse, some said it was a sign of the apocalypse (close but no cigar, bucko), and some even said it was global warming. I told everyone I knew that it was some crazy guy with more rocks in his head than a Po-Matoran, (I hate that I know that joke,) and that I was one of the jackasses who took him down and brought God back to life. Oddly enough, nobody believed me.

School was closed for about another month after all that shit went down. The curriculum was just more of the same; moles this, MLA format that, and being a magical space hero wasn’t a real job, apparently.

Ian and I only saw each other in passing until the holidays. I invited him over to our house, and he forced me to sit through all of the Star Wars movies in preparation for Rogue One, as well as shoved the Bionicle movies down my throat, as well as rambled about how shit the Netflix Bionicle show was.

I just sat there, all the while, thinking about how lucky I was to be with him. After all the crazy bullshit that went down, I was finally doing something at least marginally normal. I loved him, and he loved me, too. This all started with one hell of a nightmare, and ended as one hell of a dream. 


	28. Epilogue 2- And Now, For Something Completely Different

Chaos had found a nice little hut for himself in Florida. It had been abandoned for ages, and he loved the chaotic nature of the state. Turmoil was always his favourite thing. Well, that, torturing, murder, and bringing to life abominations. In fact, he was doing the latter just then.

He was fashioning a corrupt elemental Stone, using one of the ones he had quickly slapped together to fuel the Halfguard.

“How much faster can it be done?” a figure from the corner of the room asked him. Their voice was rough, and sounded like they were putting on an intimidating facade. “I’ve waited long enough for you to put together your useless rocks, and I need to get my things done!”

“Hang on, hang on,” Chaos grumbled, “if I rush this thing this Demiguard is going to come out all wonky!”

“Demiguard? Really?” the figure chided him, “Are you honestly that uncreative? Your last thing was Halfguards, it’s the same thing!”

“Well, when you can manufacture servants of varying and unique elemental abilities,” he said, “then you can name them.” Chaos put the finishing touches on the Stone, and pulled back from the worktable.

“There,” he said, satisified, “now, we can get to work. By the way, have you thought of a new name, yet?”

“I think,” the figure said, “I’ve decided on one.”

“What is it, then?”

“I think my favourite,” the figure said, “is Xander.”


End file.
